Joseph Masa and The Sword Of Merlen
by SmallLouie
Summary: 7 Years after Harry Potter Graduated an American is praticapating in an extange program with Hogwarts where he discovers mean mysterys.
1. A Surprise

Chapter 1 A Surprise  
  
So the story goes that Voldemort was finally killed and the hero who finally finished him off was none other then the famous Harry Potter. Peace had finally returned to the wizard world and everything has settled down. Now life could get back on course....  
  
7 years after Harry Potter graduated Hogwarts..  
  
"Joseph Masa get down here you have a letter," yelled Audrey Masa, "I think it's a letter from that private school." A tall, skinny boy rushed down the stairs with the look of anticipation on his face. "Are you sure mom?" Joseph asked "Well it has the Palma logo on it and it is addressed to you, so I am going to assume it is." his mom said sarcastically. Joseph ran his fingers through his black hair then grabbed the paper out her hand and started to rip the seal open. Dear Mr. Joseph Masa, We have reviewed your application to join Palma Private school. We are very pleased at your excellent grades and perfect attendance But are sorry to inform you that you didn't make it to our next school Year. We hope you will consider applying again next year.  
  
Sincerely yours Palma Private School for Young Men.  
  
Joe looked at the paper with disbelief in his brown eyes, "I didn't get in," Joseph said, "it said to consider next year." "I am sorry Joseph," his mother said, as she knelled down to hug him, "I know you wanted to go evercents your father died." Joseph hung his head and embraced his moms hug, "I better get up stairs Josh wants to finish our game." Joseph let go of his mother and walked up stairs to his room. Joseph's room was covered with all kinds of posters from Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, his bed lay in the middle of the room; it was covered with a San Francisco Giants bead sheets. On the right side of his room was a used computer that had been used often by Joseph to play games and such the internet, Joe sat down at the desk him computer is on and typed to his friend, "Hi Josh I am back I was just got a piece of mail from Palma." Joseph sat there for a few minutes and wait, but Josh never responded. "Hello any body there," Joseph typed again, there was no response, "Josh are you playing a joke on me." no answer. Joseph was beginning to get frustrated, Josh was slow but not that slow, "I am going to call you," Joseph typed in. He got up and walked down stairs into his kitchen went straight for when all of a sudden it rang, Joseph pick it up, "Hello?" "Joseph is that you?" the voice on the other side of the telephone was Josephs friend Josh. "Josh." Joseph tried to get off more bur was cut off Josh's load voice, "Joseph I have very exciting news I got a letter from this wizerding school.." "What!" said Joseph who had heard some pretty interesting stories from Josh in the past. "Ya a wizerding school. Isn't that pretty cool.anyway I was wondering did you get one?" Joseph who was speechless at the idea of a wizerding school and the craziness of his friend Josh was trying to compriend the question. "No I don't believe that I got a letter from a wizerding school lately but why would I even get one?" Joseph asked, "Oh I thought you would be one because your father was one." 


	2. The Exchange Program

Chapter 2 The Exchange Program  
  
"What did you just say Josh?" "I said that your dad was a wizard isn't that true?" Joseph was speechless and confused, if what his friend was telling him was true (that his father was a wizard and he was one before) then why didn't his mom tell him before. "Joseph are you there?" Josh asked in vain, Joseph was in a state of disbelief and shock. "What, oh I am talking to Joseph, Dad," Josh seem to be talking to his dad but Joseph still didn't notice, "I was just checking to see if he got a letter too.what do you mean... no he didn't get one why would that matter.. what do you mean erase his memory.dad why is this so important?" Joseph seemed to brake out of his trance in time to hear Josh say, "Joseph my dad says we have to come over now.." Josh's voice disappeared and was replaced by the dial tone. "Hello Josh are you there," Joseph yell into the phone, "what do you mean come over.." but his voice was cut off by a load bang and a smash coming from his living room. Joseph hung up the phone immediately and ran into the living room to see a short, stocky, bald man came bursting out of his fireplace. "Mr. Thompson?" Joseph stared at Joshes dad, "how did you do that?" Just then Josephs mom came in the room, "Hey Joseph I was working outside when this strange bird came over head and.." She was stopped in mid- sentence by the sight of Josh bursting face forward out of the fireplace, landing right next to Mr. Thompson. "What is going on here?" Josephs mom exclaimed, "Oh um. sorry to barge in like this Audrey but we need to have a little conversation. But where are my manners, what were you saying Audrey?" "Well I was just saying that a bird was flying over head and it seems to have dropped this letter," she held a tiny hand written envelop in her hands, "but I guess that's not the strangest thing that has happened to me today," she said weakly. "Oh," said Mr. Thompson, "that's what I came over here to talk to you about." Mr. Thompson started to walk over to the couch and sat down, "Man that felt good," he said, "ya know that I was afraid I was going to have to erase your memory Joseph, but with the arrive of that letter it seems to be good news for." Joseph looked at Mr. Thompson then Josh and back again, "What's going here?" Joseph asked in a confused tone. "You're a wizard Joseph just like your father was and his father was and his father was and so on," said Mr. Thompson "A wizard," Josephs mom blurted, "his father was a wizard? John I think you have some explaining to do." Joseph, who felt like he was in a twilight zone episode, sat down next to Josh on the sofa. Joseph mom, who was the most confused out of all of them, sat down in a chair "Ok here it goes," Mr. Thompson started out, "I was about eleven when I received a strange letter almost exactly like that one," he pointed over at the letter that was still in Josephs moms hands, "go ahead and open it if you want Joseph." Joseph's mom handed him the letter and he ripped its seal open to find a hand written letter on the inside,  
  
  
  
Dear Mr. Masa  
  
We are please to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizerding, in London, England, Now we are aware of your current location and are please to inform you that the exchange program that was started 2 years ago is still in affect. Which means you must use foo powder to get to London. The following enclosed paper is the books and supplies you will need for the following school year. All these items can be found in Diagon Alley or any other Witchcraft shops nearest you. We look forward to your arrival at Hogwarts. Yours sincerely,  
  
Professor Mc Gonagall  
  
Deputy Headmistress  
  
Joseph couldn't believe his eyes, was what he was seeing really true, he looked up at his mother then to Mr. Thompson. "Is this true?" he managed to sputter out. "Yes Joseph it is very truthful and in two short weeks you will be going to London." Mr. Thompson answered. "But why London?" his mother said out "Well Audrey we do have our own School for wizards and witches in America but the two offices who run these school, Ministry Of Magic in Britain and The Congress Of Magic in America thinks its high time that they combine power into a International Ministry Of Magic," Mr. Thompson paused to catch his breath, "so when they decided to form a new magic office they decided that we only needed one school so for the next 10 years there is going to be an exchange program where young witches and wizards at Hogwarts will go to Merandery (the American witch and wizerding school) and visa versa." There was a long silence in the room after Mr. Thompson spoke, Joseph was bursting with questions but his mom beat him to the punch, "You said that George was a wizard to but how come he never told us?" "I don't know the answer to that question, but what ever Georges reasons were he probably had a good one." Mr. Thompson responded. Joseph never really knew his dad he had died when Joseph was very little and he never got a response from his mom when he asked her about him. "So what do you think?" asked Josh who for some reason had been very quite so far. "I don't know what to think." said Joseph Joseph mom stood up, and looked at all of the people in her living room and said, "Well we only have two weeks left to spend together Joseph so lets make the most of them."  
  
The next two weeks went by fast, at least in Joseph's opinion; he spent most of his time learning about common witch and wizard practices, life styles, and sports (mostly Quidditch). Joseph was looking forward to Hogwarts but how they were going to get there still wasn't explained to him  
  
Joseph woke up one morning to realize that this was the day he left; he had been anticipating this event for the last two weeks he could hardly believe it. Joseph got up, washed up, and walked to the kitchen. When he walked in there was his mom sitting and talking to Josh, who seemed to be telling her about a midget he saw riding a bicycle. "Well honey this is the day," Josephs mom said with a hint of sadness in her voice, "now honey Mr.Thompson told me not to give you luggage because you needed to pick some stuff up at Di-aag-on alley." His mom tried to say but was a little too much for her. "I know mom I got my money too." Joseph responded "Oh I am going to miss you Joseph." She stood up and hugged him "I'll miss you too mom." Joseph said as he returned the hug. "I hate to reunion the moment but we must be off." Mr. Thompson said, as he appeared out of the shadows, Joseph hadn't seen him there and was startled by his appearance. "We must be off boys," Mr. Thompson said, "say your last goodbyes and we shall be off." Joseph hugged his mom one more time and then Josh said goodbye and they left. The moment they left the door Joseph suddenly wonder how they were going to get all the way to London, "How are we going to get there?" Joseph asked. "Foo powder of course." Mr. Thompson responded. Joseph remembers them describing something called foo powder that let them travel long distances in seconds. Joseph inquired more about foo powder as they made there way to the Thompsons house were they could use the families fire place to travel. They arrived at the house after what seemed like an hour to Joseph who had made that trip tons of times, "Ok Joseph we told you what to do when you use foo powder but we are still going to let josh go and show you how to do it." Mr. Thompson said as they approached the small fireplace. Josh stood in front of the fireplace and sprinkled some powder into it and said, "Diagon Alley, London, England." He spoke it with a clarity Joseph had never heard in him before, but Joseph wasn't thinking about that at the moment now he was to busy watching Josh shrink and spin into the fire and then POOF he was gone. Before Joseph new it he was standing in front of the fireplace muttering the same words as Josh and Bam! He felt like he was spinning like on one of the roller coasters at Great America, his legs were far behind though it felt like it was not moving, but then all of a sudden it stopped and he fell on the ground with a thud. He looked up from the extremely clean floor to see two long tables stretch out from one side of the room to the another. "Joseph get up quick my dad is coming!" yelled a familiar voice; Joseph looked up to see a frantic Josh yelling at him. Joseph who astounded by the whole thing acted like he hardly heard Josh but then he felt something really heavy falls on his back legs. It was Mr. Thompson, he had landed up right on Joseph's legs, and Joseph could feel him without even having to look up at him. "Ouch!!! ," Joseph yelled as he jerked his body away and managed to get up in a single bound. "Oh sorry Joseph I was sure that you would have moved out of the way." Mr. Thompson responded Joseph who's legs hurt was not paying attention to Mr. Thompsons talking he was busy studying the surrounding. He was observing many weird looking creatures that seem to be writing and counting when Mr. Thompson seemed to answer the question that he was thinking, "We are at Gringotts, London's Wizard bank this is where we will open you boys bank accounts." Mr. Thompson seemed far more into it then Joseph or Josh who were still looking around in amazement, Mr. Thompson walked up to a tall desk that was larger then he was, he looked up at the creature that was sitting at the top and said "I would like to open two accounts, one for Josh Thompson," he handed the creature a check he looked at Joseph and signaled him over. Joseph walked over half scared and have excited "We are going to need your money now Joseph," Mr. Thompson whispered Joseph handed a check and by the look of Mr. Thompson it must have been a lot. "And another account in the name of Joseph Masa." He handed the creature Joseph's check and then the creature handed Mr. Thompson two keys and told him "Go to vault 789 and 790." Mr. Thompson lead them to what looked like a small cart but it wasn't the cart that interseted Joseph it was the ride. The cart went straight down, the air blasted in Joseph's perfectly combed hair, the ride seem to last only a few seconds and then it was over. When the Cart stopped the Goblin (Joseph inquired about them during the ride) that was riding with them got out and called the vault numbers out loud and opened the vaults. In Joseph's there was small amount of gold at least compared to Josh who had two huge stacks. They got their money and left back to the surface where they were going to by their supplies.  
  
As they left Gringotts they enter what looked like a small alley but as they started walking it became huge and the buildings became more exciting, some were advertising, some were selling the most wondrous food and candy, and some were just plain buildings that seemed unexciting to the eye but when entered the buildings entior was ten times as amazing as some of the other buildings. After shopping through many shops there were only two more things Joseph needed. "Let's see I need a wand and a pet." Exclaimed Joseph. "Well the pet shall be easy, but the wand that's a different story," replied Mr. Thompson, "ok you two head to Ollivander's that's where all the wizards in London get there wands." So Josh and Joseph walked into a small musty shop, "Buenos Diaz, more exchange students I presume." Said an old, pale eyes man. "Yup," said Josh who was a friendly person wherever he went "we are Americans." "Ah I see so what country are you Americans from?" "We are from the U.S.A." Josh said with pride in his voice "Oh I see Yankees, well welcome to Ollivander's I am Ollivander I will help you chose your wand," He said as a smile broke out over his face, "So who wants to be chosen first?" "Chosen?" Joseph asked with a look of confusion in his voice "Yes you see in our world you do not chose the wand the wand chooses you. Ok no who are you two gentlemen anyway?" "Oh I am Joseph Masa and that is Josh Thompson" "Ok Mr. Masa, Mr. Thompson who wants to be chosen first?" "Ill go," said Josh as he walked up closer to Ollivander. "Now Josh let me take your measurements," Ollivander started to measure Joshes arms hands, "ah I think I know what you need." He walked back to the shelves that were full of boxes that Joseph concluded were full of wands. "Ah here it is," Ollivander, said after searching for a few minutes, "this Mr. Thompson is a special wand made of a single Roc feather eight and a half inches." "Cool," said Josh as he swung the wand around in his hand, "Try something Mr. Thompson say Lumos." "Lumos," Josh said quickly. All of a sudden a burst of light blasted out of Joshes wand "Ah a perfect match on the first try." Ollivander said with a look of satisfaction on his face "Now your turn Mr. Masa," he said while he collected money from Josh Joseph walked slowly up to the front of the shop with a look of anticipation on his face.  
  
"Now for your measurements," Ollivander said as he pulled out his measuring tape. He lifted up Josephs arm and the said something to himself and then started to measure Joseph's right hand. "Hum you my friend are" but he didn't finish his sentence, instead he ran over to the shelves and began to shuffle through many different boxes, saying things to himself as he went along.  
  
It must have been a good min or two before he could be heard shouting "Eureka," from the back room. He came rushing in holding a wand in his hands, "Here it is Mr. Masa, a Pixie Wing, nine and three fourths." Joseph stood there with the wand in his hand, investigating it and trying to ignore joshes sniggering in the back round. "Well aren't you going to give it a try?" Ollivander asked "Ah ok," responded Joseph. He started waving the wand in the air trying to remember what Josh had said. "Was it Lumas no it couldn't have been," he thought "no its Lumos." "Lumos." He said loudly and then he felt a jerk from the wand and a light burst out of it. "Excellent," shouted Ollivander Joseph paid for his wand, thanked Ollivander then left outside to find Mr. Thompson. "Boys we have to hurry and get to platform 9 and ¾ in a about 20 mintues. So they hurried along to the pet store both Josh and Joseph bought Owls, Joseph who wanted a cat, was convinced by Josh and Mr. Thompson that a owl was more useful to a wizard then a cat.  
  
So they hurried along the street trying to make it to this platform Mr. Thompson kept talking about, and finally they made it with only 2 minutes to spare. "Ok boy just walk through," said Mr. Thompson with a hint of panic in his deep voice. "Ok," Both Josh and Joseph said at the same time Joseph stood looking at the wall but didn't have a chance to think about was he was doing when Bam he had just walked through a brick wall, and was staring at a train with the word Hogwarts across the front of the train. He could still here Mr. Thompson's voice in the background saying, "Have a good time." Joseph was about to do something that only a select few people would ever do and he was still thinking it was a dream. 


	3. The Sorting Hat

Chapter 3 The Sorting Hat  
  
Joseph began to walk up the stairs that lead to the train's compartments. "Which one?" Joseph asked as he and Josh looked into several of the compartments. "I don't know," Josh replied as he pulled open one of the doors to see the compartment empty, "This one." Joseph and Josh walked in, put their luggage in the luggage holders, and sat down with their owls next to each other. "I think I know what to name him," Josh said as he petted his white spotted owl, "how 'bout Woodstock?" "Woodstock isn't that the bird from Peanuts?" Joseph blurted out. "Well he looks like a Woodstock, to me." Josh replied. "Well if you like it you can name it that I think it might be cool, you could change your name to snoopy to and you guys would be the best of pals." "You know what Joseph shut up." Josh extended his hand like he was going to smack Joseph. "So what are you going to name her?" Josh said as he pointed to the dark brown owl that was in a cage sleeping, next to Joseph. "I don't know let me think .... Athena." Responded Joseph. "What does Athena mean?" "Athena she was the Greek Goddess of wisdom and knowledge." "How did you know that?" Josh asked puzzled "I saw it on the discovery channel." Joseph said "Why do you watch the crap look at all the other good shows that are on like on MTV..." Josh was interrupted by a tall, brown haired, boy. "Oh I am sorry I didn't know this compartment was taken," said the boy, and he left before Josh and Joseph could say anything. "Wonder what that was about" said Josh Joseph was about to respond to him when two skinny blond haired girls walked in and asked if they could sit in this compartment, and Josh was only so happy to says yes. Joseph who try many unsuccessfully to restart the converstion he was having with Josh, but Josh was to busy talking to the two girls. And every time Joseph tried to join in the conversation josh would chase him out and bring it back to him. So Joseph get starred out the window watching the scenery go by, the sun that was shining through on him and making him sleepy. He closed his eyes slowly and then...  
  
"Don't kill him he is innocent, I was the one," Joseph was staring at two men, the first man seem to have his wand pointed at someone he could not see and the other man was on the floor looking like he could not walk. "I have waited 17 years for this moment and you will not ruin it," said the man who was standing. "No he doesn't deserve this no one does!" said the man on the ground. "Ah Severus you have gone weak just like Potter here and look at him now." "No Voldimort don't kill him."  
  
"Joseph!" "hua wha..?" Josh was standing over Joseph shaking him awake "You were dreaming Joseph and rather loudly I must add." Said Josh "What time is it?" Joseph asked as if he was in a trance. "I don't know but Emily told me we are going to get to Hogwarts soon." "Emily?" "Oh she is one of the girls that was in here with us they left to get changed into our robs and we should to." Joseph got up and started to change but couldn't get him mind off his dream. "Who were all those people in his dream, he didn't know any of them," he though while he tried to get his robe on correctly. "I know who Harry Potter is and that's only because he was one of the most famous Wizards of all time, and I have heard about some one named Voldimort before but he couldn't remember where." Joseph was suddenly broken out of his deep thoughts by a violent stopping of the train. Josh seemed to have fallen down and was picking him self up as Joseph finished getting ready to debark. As Joseph and Josh started to leave the train they saw the girls that were in the room with them. "You go ahead Joseph," josh said quickly as he hurried off to the girls. Joseph who was use to Joshes strange behavior around girls didn't mind in fact it gave him a chance to think about his strange dream.  
  
"First Years over here." A deep, booming voice yelled. Joseph who had just emerged from the train saw a huge towering man who was wearing a sombrero over his bushy hair. Joseph walked over to him and got in a line with a bunch of other first years to hear their instructions. Joseph saw Josh trying to come over to him shoving several people out of the way to get to him. "Where are the girls at?" Joseph asked with great uninterested "Oh there second years they had to go another way," Josh said as a cocky simile flashed out across his face. "I would have gone with them too but I didn't want to make you feel bad." He added "Well.." Joseph was about to say something when he heard the deep booming voice yell something, "Hello, hola, an' um how do ya say hello in French?," the giant man looked down at the scared first years with a huge smile coming out of his bushy beard. "Wel' any way me name is Hagrid I 'm the grounds keeper at 'ogwarts an' I like to o'fical welcome to tiss grand establishment now everyone get into these boats and we can cross the lake." Joseph and Josh got into the closest boat, which had two more people in it. One of who was the boy who had accidentally walked into their compartment and the other a browned skinned boy who looked rather happy considering all the other boys and girls looked like they had died in some horrible accident. As they padded across the lake Josh broke the ice and introduced himself. The others soon followed, the boy who had accidentally walked in their cart was named Benjamie Jefferson Thomas but preferred to be called BJ, and he said he was from the U.S. The other boy's name was Louis Gurrara and he said he came from the U.S. but was born in Mexico. Joseph thought he wanted to people to know that. Josh and Joseph made their introductions too. With in a few minutes of the departure they had arrived. As Joseph got out of the boat it was his first chance to see the school. He starred in awe at the beautiful castle. Its rigged arch walkway was what amazed him the most, but before he could really have a good look they were being shuffle up a set of stone stairs. As they walked up the stairs Joseph could hear a cacophony of talking, and became suddenly nervous. He looked over at Josh to talk to him but Josh wasn't next to him, Joseph looked around and spotted him talking to a small brown eyed girl. So Joseph continued his walk up to the top of the staircase. As they reached the peak of the Stone Mountain a older glasses wearing women appeared and started talking, "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I am Professor McGonagall," she said as she eyed around the room checking out the new batch of students. "I am personally glad to see so many of you taking place in the International Wizard and witches exchange program," she paused to cough and then continued, "I hope many of you will enjoy your new home for the next year but before I can let you join the feast I must explain how the sorting process works. Now there are Four Houses Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytheren these shall be your family while you stay here at Hogwarts." She droned on for about 5 minutes before she lead them to go into the Great Hall. If Joseph thought that the outside of the school was amazing he was blown away by the inside of the Great Hall. The ceiling had stars in it shine brightly as Joseph walked under them. In the front of the hall was a huge table that Joseph assumed was the teachers' table. Behind the teachers table was many different countries flags, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. There were many more flags but Joseph's attention was pulled away from the flags and onto a shabby, tattered, old hat. "This is the sorting hat, it will decide what house you shall belong to," Professor McGonagall said as she gestured to the hat. But then as she pointed to the hat it began moving around and started singing  
  
Years ago before your birth  
  
four great wizards began a legacy and now that they are dead it is up to me to me to decide your fate Shall you be a Gryffindor bravest of all people Or is your path a Hufflepuff they work harder then all who try mabe you are a Ravenclaw was a cleverman who like his people smart and wise But you could be Slytherin who will never let anything get in their way But now the decision is mine and it is your fate I shall decide So step on up and face fate it'll only take a second for me to chose.  
  
The Great Hall burst into applause, even Joseph was clapping, he thought the song was bad but never saw a hat sing before so he decided it was pretty good. "That hat gets worse every year." Joseph heard someone say and tried not to laugh to load as to offend the hat. Professor McGonagall, who had stopped clapping by now, pulled out a large scroll and was unrolling it. "Matthew Aaron." She yelled out loud A fairly tall boy emerged from the crowd and walked up to the hat and put it on. "Hufflepuff" the hat yelled. The people at the yellow table started clapping and shouting. "John Barberson" Professor McGonagall continued One by one everybody in the in the crowd was finding them selfs in different houses. "Louis Gurrara" Joseph saw Louis walk up to the Hat and put it on. "Ravenclaw." The hat shouted. Joseph noticed that the two girls that Josh was talking to earlier were sitting at the Gryffindor table, no doubt Josh would want to go to that House. "Joseph Masa." Called Professor McGonagall. Joseph started to move out the crowed that was still waiting to be called. As he started climbing the steps he felt like it was getting harder to move, his arms became like stone and froze to the side of his body. Joseph approached the chair and sat down slow as if he was making sure it was safe to sit down. Professor McGonagall placed the hat on his head and he started to hear a tiny voice in his ear. "Oh, let me see..hum you are difficult to read all right," the voice said. "Ah I can see clearly now you are defiantly a Ravenclaw." The hat shouted across the great hall. Joseph stepped down from the seat and felt relived that it was all over. He quickly rushed over to the Ravenclaw table and sat down next to Louis. Many more names were called but Joseph wasn't paying attention he was too busy talking with a group of second years that were describing many aspects of the school. "Benjamie Thomas," Professor McGonagall called. Joseph turned in time to see BJ putting the hat on, and what seemed like an hour the hat called out "Ravenclaw." Joseph was happy to at least have a few friends in his house, but he wanted Josh to get Ravenclaw too. "Joshua Thompson." Joseph watch anxiously as Josh put the hat on. "Gryffindor." The hat shouted out. "What!!" Joseph thought while he watched Josh walk over to the Gryffindor table. "Well I guess that fits, the hat did say that Ravenclaws where wise and the only wise thing Josh ever did was beat up the school bully in forth grade." Josh sat down next to the second year girls, laughing smiling with them not even a look at Joseph. "Let the feast begin." Said a tall gray haired wizard who sat at the top of the professors' table. Suddenly food appeared on the table, looking very good Joseph did bother to ask someone how or why this happened.  
  
After everyone was done stuffing there faces with food the wizard who started the Feast stood up and started talking, "Hello our over seas guest and welcome to Hogwarts, I am the Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and I'd like to make a few announcements," he flashed a smile that seem to blind everyone in the front rows. "This year we will allow first years to try out for the Quidditch, and all first years through fourth years will be required to take Muggle studies." "Muggle studies?" Joseph thought, "What's a muggle?" "And also this year we will continued the House Challenge, but we will let your heads of houses explain it in more details. And so we begin a new chapter in Wizard history and I wish all of you the best of luck for the next year studies and adventures you are excused." Dumbledore and the rest of the professors got up and started to head out. Joseph who still didn't understand much of anything that just happened got up and started to head towards Josh..but he couldn't see him anywhere. His eyes searched for him but couldn't see hi. "Hey Joseph you come in?" BJ said brightly "Oh ya I was just looking for Josh." Joseph replied as he looked one more time and then started following BJ. The group of Ravenclaw's started walking up a set of stairs that scared Joseph because they kept changing directions. But soon they had arrived a painting of an old man who was holding a huge stick. "Password please," The old man asked in a wraspy voice. "Civilization," said the boy who was leading the pack. The painting swung open to revel a huge blue brick covered room with many sets and chairs all around. There was a fireplace on the right wall and two staircases leading on either side of the fireplace. "Girls on the left, boys on the right." Said the Head boy who was giving a tour of the Ravenclaw common room. After the tour all the first years headed up to their room to start unpacking. Joseph, BJ and Louis all chose bed next to each other and began to unpack. 


	4. Krum and Others

Chapter 4  
  
Krum and Others  
  
Joseph sat red eyed at the Ravenclaw table. He had stayed up all night talking and finding out more info about the school, wizards, and anything he could learn to make himself ready for anything that might happen today. BJ came out of nowhere and sat down across from him. "Man you look bad." BJ said as he started grabbing bacon from the plates of food. Joseph didn't respond he was trying to keep his eyes open. Joseph was still awake enough to see Professor Flitwick, the head of the Ravenclaw house, passing out schedules. "Lets see first years," he said as he passed BJ and Joseph handing them their schedules. Joseph seemed to wake up as he examined the sheet of paper.  
  
First Years Monday: Morning: 9:00-10:30 Care of Magical Creatures, w/Hufflepuff. 10:30-12:00 Transfiguration, w/Gryffindor. Afternoon: 1:00-2:30 Herbology, w/Slytherin.  
  
Tuesday: Morning: 9:00-10:30 History of Magic, w/Slytherin. 10:30-12:00 Charms, w/Gryffindor. Afternoon: 1:00-2:30 Potions, w/Hufflepuff.  
  
Wednesday: Morning: 9:00-10:30 Care of Magical Creatures, w/Hufflepuff. 10:30-12:00 Transfiguration, w/Gryffindor. Afternoon: 1:00-2:30 Herbology, w/Slytherin.  
  
Thursday: Morning: 9:00-10:30 History of Magic, w/Slytherin. 10:30-12:00 Charms, w/Gryffindor. Afternoon: 1:00-2:30 Potions, w/Hufflepuff.  
  
Friday: Morning: 9:00-10:30 Muggle Studies, w/Hufflepuff Afternoon: 11:30-2:30 Double Defense Against the Dark Arts, w/Gryffindor.  
  
"Dang they keep us busy," BJ said while stuffing a muffin in his mouth. Joseph was looking over the schedule a few times till he had it memorized. On the other side of the table you could hear Louis telling another first year how to pronounce his name correctly, "Louis the I make's an e sound." Joseph checked his watch in anticipation of going to class, "15 minutes till we have to go." Joseph said enthusiastically.  
  
Fifteen minutes later the Ravenclaw first years as well as the Hufflepuff first years were all gathered around a small hut outside near a huge forest. Joseph had a hard time understanding the professor who happen to be Hagrid the man who lead them across the lake. All he could understand was that they would be taking care of a creature called a small-armed elf, which he did not show them but he did explain in great detail how to take care of it. Too bad Joseph couldn't understand what he was saying and he was glad to hear the bell blast across the field, meaning that they could leave.  
  
Joseph, BJ, and Louis all headed for the transfiguration room in side the main building. Joseph secretly hoped that Josh would sit with him in transfiguration but knowing Josh he wouldn't. BJ, Joseph and Louis all took seats in the back of the room. Professor McGonagall stood in the front of the room waiting for everyone to sit down, Joseph looked for Josh but saw no sign of him. "Hello and welcome all first year students this is Transfiguration if anybody is in the wrong room please tell me." She said brightly. Joseph spotted two people sneaking in the back of the room; it was Josh and some girl he remembered seeing him talking to. "Mr. Thompson. Miss Smith I am glad you could join us." Josh and the girl stopped in their spots and turned around to see Professor McGonagall starring at them. "Uh we were coming from" but she didn't get to finish her sentence. "I don't want to hear excuses Jessica please take your seats and don't be late again," Professor McGonagall said firmly. Josh and Jessica both went and took seats all the way in the back of the room and the lesson proceeded. For the rest of the class they practiced waving their wands and trying to learn an easy spell that was supposta turn a feather into two feathers but the only one who managed to do this was Joseph and BJ. Louis kept turning it into a deformed half feather. BJ tried to help him but Louis swore he knew what he was doing. Joseph kept looking back at Josh to see what he was up to but every time he did he saw Josh talking to Jessica both laughing about something. For a few perinod seconds Joseph thought they were laughing about him. After what felt like to Joseph like ten minutes the bell rang for lunch and Joseph thought happy he could eat was a little disappointed for he like transfiguration. As everyone was leaving the room Joseph tried to catch up to Josh but couldn't catch up Josh had already spotted Emily in the hall way and speed through everyone on his quest to catch up with her. Joseph decided he would find Josh at lunch and walked back to BJ and Louis who were arguing about how to wave your wand properly. "Where did you go Joseph?" BJ asked trying to cut off Louis from talking. "Oh I was trying to catch up to Josh but he went to find some girl." Joseph responded as he kick a piece of trash that was on the ground. "Why do you keep trying to talk to Josh?" said Louis who was waving his wand around wildly. "Oh it's just me and Josh have been friends for almost ten years and I feel like he is my brother that I never had." Joseph said quietly as if the others would not hear. "What's so great about brothers," Louis said as they sat down at the Ravenclaw table. "I have four and all of they are jerks to me." "Hey BJ do you have a brother?" Joseph asked just as BJ had managed to have a half a sandwich in his mouth. "Oh um I have one older brother." BJ said after he swallowed the sandwich half. "But he went to the American school for witchcraft and wizardry." "All my brothers went to Llamantas, school for witchcraft and wizardry, except my oldest brother he was a squib," Louis added. Joseph knew that a squib was a person who had both parents who where both wizards and their child wasn't a wizard or witch. They finished up lunch by hearing how Louis's family was made up of many witches and wizards. Joseph didn't see Josh at all during lunch but decided that tomorrow he would talk to Josh during Charms.  
  
The Bell rang and BJ, Louis, and Joseph all headed to the green house, they had Hebology with Professor Sprout and the netorues Slytherins. Joseph found out how bad the Slytherins could be first hand. All through the class they kept yelling out sarcastic comments and making fun of people. Especially a kid named Chris Mulky who despite his big size didn't do anything when they made fun of his name. Joseph admired his calm nature and good manner. After being properly introduced with the fungus plant and told how to avoid smelling like garbage the bell rang and Joseph made a brake away to the Ravenclaw common room, where he decided to relax on the couch. "Man Joseph you left that class fast," said the familiar voice of BJ. "I was tired." Joseph said as he laid his head down on the edge of the couch. "Well don't forget we have homework for Transfiguration, we have to go to the library and find a spell we could use to transform something." Joseph got himself up of the couch and made his way down to the library feeling tired and frustrated as all the spells in the books he looked at we for advanced students. Until BJ found a book with more first year spells then you could perform. "I'll take the discos spell and you take the demona spell." Said BJ as he slammed the book shut. They headed to the Great Hall to have dinner when Joseph spotted Josh talking with Jessica. "Hi Josh," Joseph said cheerfully. "How is it going?" "Oh hi Joseph." Josh replied not evening looking at Joseph. "So what classes did you have today?" Joseph asked trying to reboot the conversation. "Oh I had a bunch of classes." This time Josh looked at him for a sec but his attention did stay on him; two girls walked by and Josh said hi. "Hey Josh I think it's time we left for dinner." Jessica suggested "Oh ok I'll see ya around Joseph." Josh yelled at him as he walked down the hall towards dinner. Joseph stood their speechless, angry with Jessica, angry with Josh, and finally angry with Louis who yelled out, "BURN!!!" after Josh was out of range. Joseph sat at the Ravenclaw table trying not to think about what happened but it was hard, especially with Louis telling anyone in an earshot of his booming voice. BJ on the other hand remained silent during the whole affair, which Joseph was happy for, he couldn't stand two people bagging on him at once. Joseph went straight to bed after dinner, trying to catch up on the sleep he missed the night before.  
  
The next day began as the other had. Joseph sat at the Ravenclaw table red eyed and hoping that he could sleep during a class today. BJ was eating a pile of food and occasionally he looked up at Joseph and tried to make him laugh by telling him some of his favorite jokes. Louis, who looked like he had slept as much as Joseph, walked in and sat down at the table. But the only difference between Louis and Joseph was the fact that Louis was smiling. "Well, guys today we go to potions," Louis said excitedly. "What's so special about Potions?" BJ piped in. "What, you don't know?" Louis looked stunned as both BJ and Joseph shook their heads. "Please enlighten us Louis." Joseph said bluntly "Well when Harry Potter went to school here he was friends with the potions teacher." Explained Louis "Wait a minute Louis," BJ interrupted, "Professor Krum teaches Potions, and I heard the Harry Potter story ton's of times and he never had a friend named Krum." "BJ I am sorry to smack you down, but you see he had a friend who was married, Hermione Granger, am I ringing any bells yet." BJ sat there with his hand on his chin, looking like he was in deep thought. "Ya, I think your right," he finally said after a good minute or two. Joseph couldn't understand what they were talking about just looked at them. He figured the mystery would be solved during potions class.  
  
The mystery grew in Josephs mind as the day progressed. The more talk he heard from other students the more interested he became in the story of Harry Potter. And it changed from every person he heard it from. One minute Harry was saving the world, the next he was playing Quidditch while his best friends cheered him on. With every new story came unexpected twists and turns in the plot. He found himself wondering how Harry would get out of the mess he found himself in. By lunch Joseph found himself very excited about going to Potions, after all he would get to meet one of the Great Harry Potters friends. As soon as the bell rang announcing afternoon classes Joseph hurried along to class. But he was not the only one; he noticed that many students were rushing through the halls. Joseph and BJ arrived in a musty, foul smelling classroom. They took a seat at a table with a cauldron in the middle. A cacophony of whispers echoed around the room. Joseph could see many different bottles of things like batwings, mice eyes, and toads. "Hello everyone." Joseph looked behind him to see a bushy, brown-eyed witch. "I am Professor Krum." She said as a smile appeared across he face. She walked down to the bottom of the room and faced them. "This is the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw class." Some of the students nodded their heads. "Now I know this is your first day in potions, but I would like to get started right away and begin our lesson. Please get out your note book and quails." The class sat there looking at her stupidly. "Well please get you stuff out." She said again. Joseph reacted and got his notebook out and quail. During the class Joseph wanted to ask questions about Harry Potter and all the other stories he heard, but was to nervous to ask. The class Bell rang signaling that the class was over. The students shuffled out of the classroom, Joseph was rather disappointed in the potions class. He was felt like he had been let down. BJ on the other hand didn't seem disappointed at all. Joseph figured he was the only one who didn't buy into the hype that everyone else bought into. After dinner that night, Louis, BJ, and Joseph were all in the common room doing homework for potions. "If there is one thing about Professor Krum is that she gives too much homework." BJ said as he wrote something out of a book onto a paper. Joseph, who decided to take a brake from homework, was looking out at the Hogwarts grounds. He was particularly fixed on the lake; its shiny waters drew his eyes to it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something in the distance. It was a lady, but she was hard to make out. She seemed to have a shiver aura surrounding her, but Joseph didn't have a chance to get a good look at her. She walked into a cabin that was right next to the lake. Joseph turned away to ask BJ if he had seen the lady before, but BJ was auguring with Louis about the answer to number 2. Joseph returned to work on his homework and didn't tell BJ or Louis about what he had seen.  
  
The next two days pasted rather quickly unless you counted Care of Magical Creatures, Where Louis's Long Armed Elf tried to escape into the woods with Louis's books. Friday soon was upon them and they had almost made it through their first week without incident. Joseph had been looking forward to Muggle studies he thought this would be the easiest class, after all he had spend most of his life up to this point as a muggle. Joseph, BJ, and Louis walked into the Muggle studies room, which seemed to horrify Louis. There where 10 rows of desks in the center of the room. "It looks just like a school room." BJ blurted out. Joseph agreed with him, the room reminded him of back home. "Please take your seats," a loud, masculine voice yelled out. Joseph looked across the room to see a fat, stout, short, and to his horror, a women. "I said take your seats" the voice grew louder and meaner. Almost immediately they took seats in the back row. "NO! You will not sit in the back seats together, you tall boy, move to the front row." She pointed a threating finger at BJ. BJ didn't seem to know what to do; he stared at her with a confused look. "What are you stupid move!" BJ got up slowly and moved to the front row. The other students, who were already in the room, didn't even look at her during this spectacle. "Ok now that we are all here, it's time we take roll." Since no one had take roll in their pervious classes, they all looked around at each other. "When I call your name out just say here or present. Adams, Matt.." During the roll call Joseph was starting to feel really uncomfortable. "...Lal, Monty," a small boy in the front row raised his hand "here" he said. "Did I tell you to raise your hand!" She gave Monty a threating look. Monty put his head down on the desk. "Well did I! Answer Me," She yelled even louder. "No." Monty said quickly. She finished her roll call without any other insubordination. "Now my name is Professor Carroll and I am going to assume you all will call me that all this year and the next and the next and then the next." Joseph realize this was only the first day of 4 years with her, disappointed him greatly. "A few of you are asking yourself why do we have to take a muggle studies class, 'I already lived as a muggle.' Well that's a bunch of bull, because now you are wizards and you will never live as a muggle again." She stalked forward and glared at the classroom threating them to talk. "In this class you will be looking forward to studying, acting, and thinking like muggle children. There will be no magic allowed in this classroom and if I see a wand in this room I will make sure you never take it out again." She gave off an evil smile as she said this. "So its up to you if this year goes by pleasantly or roughly." Joseph stirred at her huge brown eyes. Trying not to look away. The rest of the class went slow and when the bell rang people rushed out of that room as if she were about to kill them.  
  
"She was very bitter." Louis said as they ate. Both Joseph and BJ were quite during lunch. Joseph was still trying to intake what professor Carroll had said to them. BJ looked like he was about to throw up. During lunch Louis tried to cheer them up but it was useless. After lunch they headed to Defense Against the Dark Arts. "I heard professor Snape was mean," Louis said as they sat down. Joseph could see Josh across the room he could also hear him. He was bragging to some girls about sleeping in Harry Potters bed so loudly that everyone in the class could hear. Suddenly the door banged open and a tall, black haired man entered. The man moved down to the front of the class and turned around to look at them. "My name is Professor Snape, and I am your Defence against the dark arts professor." He said as he rubbed his hand through his beard. "This class is to prepare you for the real world and anyone.." He stopped and looked at Josh who was still talking about Harry Potters bed. "I suppose that makes you think your special." Snape said to Josh. Josh looked up at him, "Ya it does." Josh replied with a huge grin on his face as if he was taunting Snape into a fight. Snape looked at him with a dark look, "Don't test me boy, you won't like the out come." Josh's grin turned into a frown. "Now be quite." Snape said grimly. Joseph sat their shocked; no teacher has ever yelled at Josh, most of them liked Josh. The rest of the lesson they learned about Bats and how they could be dangerous to us. Joseph couldn't get over the fact that Josh shut up.  
  
Next chapter: The Trials 


	5. The Trials

Chapter 5  
  
The Trials  
  
The weeks past and October approached with full force. The nights became long and dark, and everyone's minds began to think about Quidditch. The new season was beginning and from what Joseph heard this years Ravenclaw was going to be in compition with the Gryffindor's team, which hasn't happened for over 14 years. So there was reason to be excited, but Joseph had hardly any reason to stop working. "Between Muggle studies work and Defense against the Dark Arts I am going to be up all night." Said Joseph as he, BJ, and Louis worked at a small table in the corner of the common room. Snape and Carroll had both piled on the work. BJ who hated going and seeing Professor Carroll every week, wanted to know why they had to take muggle studies. "Aren't we sapposta take it as an elective in the third year." He would pip in after every Muggle studies class. Louis, who had more knowledge about the Wizard World then ether of them, explained. "There has always been a feeling in the wizard world that we are better then them, and especially after Voldimort was killed again, Wizards have been treating Muggles like children. Trying to help them out with their daily life using magic. But what wizards who haven't ever been or known a muggle is that they are smarter then they think." Smiling at BJ as he said this. "That's why they make use take four years of it in schooling." Louis finished up. "I still think that is a stupid reason." BJ commented. While BJ and Louis argued, Joseph looked out the window into the mystical night. The moon was as round as a cookie. Its light was beaming onto the lake. Joseph still hadn't seen that mysterious figure he saw a few weeks ago. Though he did go down to the cabin that the figure went into once. But when he knocked on the door nobody was there, so he decided to leave it alone. The trees rustled outside, Joseph became hypnotized in the lakes reflection. "Joseph!!!" Boomed BJ "Wha.?" Joseph woke up from his stuper. "We have been calling for the last minute or so." "Oh I am sorry, I was just looking outside." Joseph turned around and faced BJ and Louis. "What were you staring at?" asked Louis "Oh nothing I was just thinking about stuff." Joseph started to become embarrassed. "Lets get back to work," BJ said sensing Joseph's embarrassment. That night Joseph could sleep he laid in bed and thought.  
  
"There holding Quidditch tryouts for first years this week," BJ told Joseph during lunch that Friday. "I might go out and try for the team." "Would you be able to play if you made it?" Joseph asked while picking up some food. "Nah the captain of the team said that the first years can only go on a waiting list if they make it." "Waiting list?" Joseph sat down. "What's that?" BJ sat down across of him. "That's like second string, if I made it then I would be second string on some other player incase he got hurt, I would take his place." "Sounds cool." Joseph who had shoved two rolls in his mouth looked like a walrus. "And there is also going to be a meeting for something called the trials, what ever those are." BJ took a sip of his pumpkin juice. "What are the trials?" Joseph asked. "I donno to bad Louis isn't here he could probably explain." Louis had gotten into trouble with Professor Carroll, he had made pig sounds as she passed by and was caught. "I reckon we should go to that to see what it is." BJ finished up his food and got up. The school ground was peaceful during lunch, the sun shone on the school grounds with what seemed like extra power. The lake rippled as a cool breeze blew against it. BJ and Joseph were taking a walk around the lake. They were walking by Hagrids cabin. Its dull exterior leads the imagination to wonder what was in there. Joseph looked ahead and saw the cabin that the silvery thing went in. The window faced them and Joseph could see inside of it. To Joseph surprise, he saw a silvery aura like the one from the night before. He started to run towards the cabin. "Where ya going Joseph?" BJ yelled behind him, but he was already across the lawn. Joseph ducked under the window when he got to the cabin. He slowly crept up the side of the window ledge and peered through the window. There it was a silvery being, it seemed to have hair like a women; it was definitely skinny. It looked like it hadn't eaten in a good while. Its ghostly body drifted across the cabin and to the window. Joseph let out a load gasp and fell back. BJ came running up next to him, "Joseph what the heck, are you doing?" Joseph just sat there staring up at BJ pointing his finger upwards. BJ looked up into the window, he squinted and then looked back down at Joseph. "What am I looking at?" "Look in the window." Joseph whispered. BJ again looked into the window concentrating hard. "What am I looking?" BJ asked again. "The ghost thing it's right there." Joseph was getting angry with BJ. "Can't you see it?" Joseph asked in a hush. "There is no ghost Joseph, just and old women in a chair." "What!" Joseph blurted out. "Yup she is right there." BJ pointed at the window. Joseph stood up and looked. To Joseph disbelief, there sitting in a chair in the middle of the cabin, was a wrinkled, ravished, small old lady. "But she wasn't there before" Joseph exclaimed. "It's ok Joseph she wasn't there before." BJ said unbelievingly "Will go to class now and tomorrow we will find the ghost." "Don't patronize me BJ I know what I saw it wasn't an old lady!" Joseph yelled. "What are you two doing?" Joseph and BJ turned to see the old lady who was in the cabin, standing in front of them (if you count having a walker as standing). "Don't you two have a class to get to?" the old lady asked. "Yes, we do." BJ said polity. "What were you two doing out here?" The old lady inquired. "Oh we must get to class now." BJ said hurray. He grabbed a speechless Joseph. Joseph's mouth hung open as he and BJ headed to potions. "She wasn't there I swear." Joseph kept repeating to be BJ in Potions class. "I believe you Joseph I really do." BJ would repeat like a robot. Joseph sat through Snape's lesson thinking hard about That Ghost thing. "Did I really see it?" He thought to himself. "It could have been nothing." Joseph shakes his head "I didn't imagine it, I wouldn't have been able to see it twice. Would I?" Joseph was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of telling Josh to shut up for the third time today; the rest of the class past slowly and uneventful.  
  
Joseph was waiting in the common room for BJ to come back from the Quidditch meeting. Louis was next to him; he was trying to do a math equation that Professor Carroll assigned to them to do. BJ and Joseph finished it up in no time, but Louis never went to Muggle School for even one year so he was lost. "Read me the problem Louis, maybe I can help. Joseph said. "Ok it's 12 then there is a funny looking symbol." Joseph bent over and looked, "That's a minus Louis." "Oh sorry" Louis sounded confused. "Ok the problem is 12 mi-n-us 3." "You don't know how to minus Louis?" Joseph looked at him with one eyebrow higher then the other. "Oh I am sorry I never went to you fancy mi-n-us school." Louis said bitterly. "The answer is 9." Joseph said quickly "Oh I guess that make sense." Louis wrote down the answer. "Hi guys." Joseph turned around to see BJ coming up behind them. "Oh hi BJ." Louis and Joseph said in unison. "How was the Quidditch meeting?" Joseph asked BJ as he sat down. "It was cool." Joseph knew by now that BJs suppressed his emotions and that cool meant he had a blast. "They showed us all kinds of pictures, that moved." "Of course they move what do you want them to do." Louis blurted out. "Any way," BJ continued, "they taught us how to play, and then showed us all the positions we could play." BJ took a second to breath then continued. "Then they asked us to decide what potion we would like to play incase we ever got to, you see if the person playing the position we want gets hurt or something, they randomly draw a name of a person who signed up for that position." "What position did you sign up?" Joseph asked inquisitively. "I signed up for beater, and I was the only one." BJ smiled a repressed grin. "Why were you the only one to sign up?" Asked Louis. "I don't know but the most I can figure is that most of the people wanted to be a seeker, more glory I think." "Well I hope you get to play." Joseph added with a smile. "Well I do have to show up at the practices so I'll at least get some experience." BJ checked his watch. "Hey Joseph we got to go soon." "Where do you guys have to go?" asked a confused Louis. "We are going to the Ravenclaw wizard trial meeting." Joseph answered. "What id the wizard trial?" Louis asked, "Don't know but we are going to check it out. See ya Louis." BJ and Joseph walked way from Louis and out into the hallway. "So you see any ghost lately?" BJ said jokingly. "Very funny." Joseph said emotionless. The halls at nighttime were different from the halls in the day. Joseph didn't have any way of explaining it but it was some how different. The paintings sometimes sleep at night and the halls fire lights lit up the hallway. Joseph and BJ made their way down to a huge room with a stage in the middle and seats all around it. There was hardly anybody in the room, only first years and Professor Filtwick who was sitting in the back smiling quite happily. "Hello boys." He said to BJ and Joseph as they pasted. "Hello Professor." The instinctually said back. BJ and Joseph sat down in the back row near. The wall in back of them was covered in dust, so Joseph figured that they didn't use this room very often. Joseph looked up on the stage to see a large red curtain. It stretched from one side of the stage to the other, Joseph wondered what it covered, but before he could question BJ about it the curtain opened. Six people were behind it, all of them were wearing some sort of uniform, and it had a large raven on one side and a Hogwarts on the other side. The whole uniform was blue from head to toe (matching shoes). "Welcome all," said the tallest, blue-eyed boy. "This is a meeting for the Wizard Trials team, now some of you might be wondering what is the wizard trials team is." Joseph was. "3 years ago Professor Filtwick and Professor Sprout got together and came up with a new type of challenge for the wizards of this school." "Ya and probably because both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw suck at Quidditch." BJ whispered Joseph suppressed his laugh, "Now this new challenge they came up with tested a wizards mind and wits when he is in different situations. This became known as the Wizard Trials, and the concept is simple. 4 teams from each of the different houses compete in 3 different events; each event is worth 150 points. The winner of the Wizard trials cup is the team that has the most points at the end of the third event wins. Now each team is made up of seven people, one from each year, that's what we need you first years for. You see the legacy of the Wizard trials lies on your shoulders. Now to join the team you need to fill out this form." The boy held up a piece of paper. "The form includes a few questions on it to test your knowledge. I know that you all are new here and might not know the answers to any of the questions but all we want you to do is try your best." Joseph was still baffled by all of what he heard. "Any questions?" Joseph quickly rose up his hand "Yes you?" The boy pointed to Joseph. "What do you mean?" Joseph's asked. The boy started rubbing his head, "Well I give an example. Let's say that we are in a trial, and the course is around the school. So we would start out with a clue, and is says something like, 2-5 may answer this question and the question would be, how many toads are there is toad stew? Then the second years and fifth years on the team would try to come up with the answer, and if they get it right the team moves on. If they get the question wrong then we have to answer another question until the team gets it right. And to win the most amounts of points you have to answer all your questions right and make it to the finish line first. Do you understand now?" Joseph nodded his head but on the inside he didn't under stand. "I'd have to see it being played to understand." He told BJ later that evening in the Ravenclaw common room. "I think it would probably boring but I'll still fill out the form, it might be fun after all." BJ said in an exasperated tone. Joseph knew he would probably make the team because there were only 3 people who picked up forms to join it. So BJ and him had a one in three chance to get on the team. When they told Louis about the meeting it opened up a story about how wizards in Japan have a form of the trials but instead of questions there is intense physical pain.  
  
Over the next week Joseph made frequent trips to the library, trying to find answer the questions on the form, which were at least third years questions. BJ and Joseph both agreed that they wouldn't share answers with each other, though Joseph thought he was getting the raw end of the deal because BJ was way smarter then Joseph, and probably could get the answers to the questions without any help. "Let's see number four a wizards best friend is?" Joseph was talking to himself on the way to the library. Joseph was looking down at his paper as he walked not paying attention where he was going. BAM! "Oh sorry." Joseph said as he bumped into some one. Joseph looked up and saw the familiar face of Josh. "Oh hi Joseph.' Josh said while he picked up some of his stuff. Joseph hadn't spoken to Josh out of class for over two weeks, so he was glad to see him. "Hi Josh, how is going?" "It's going good, how 'bout you?" "Oh they're going ok, I just have to look you some info at the library." Joseph knew that Josh thought that all libraries should be burned down. "Oh, that's cool." Joshes attention drifted towards a girl that walked in. "So what are you doing." Joseph said in an attempt to get Josh to focus back in on him. "Oh, ya I forgot to tell you," Joseph knew that `I forgot to tell you` meant that Josh never was going to tell you the story but scene you are here right now talking to him, he might as well try to get some attention. "In professor Carroll's class I was giving answers to some of my friends and she caught me. But that fat idiot only found one paper and she gave me detention." Josh shone a huge smile on his face as if it was like, a badge of courage to intentionally break the rules. Joseph didn't smile, he knew encouraging Josh was as bad as committing the crime. "When did you let your friends copy your papers?" Joseph asked not because he wanted to find out but to offer peace to Josh for not smiling. "During class." Josh let lose another smile. Joseph was stunned by his ignorance. "So what grade are you getting in Carroll's class?" Joseph continued his attempt to bring Josh up, in his minds eye. "Oh I don't know how they mark the grades but I think I am getting a good mark." Joshes eyes trailed of from Joseph to a girl passing by. "I got to go Joseph but I'll see ya around." Josh zoomed away before Joseph could even say goodbye. Joseph walked into the library trying to concentrate. He kept thinking about Joshes new persona, it was like the old Josh disappeared into a puff of ignorance, and was replaced by an abomination of a person. Finally after some coming down Joseph was able to start concentrating on the question paper. "No, this isn't the book." Joseph said to himself, as he looked through different books. As he made his way through the books, he spotted some rather interesting books. How to get rid of Hippy's. By Victor Von Backstreet. The White Wizard Put Me Down. By Antwon X. Many of the books he saw enticed him to come and read, but none more then the book; Merlin The Wizard Who Started It All. By Dodger Rempelson. Joseph was starting to get to the time when Merlin came about, in History of Magic. He found history fascinating, but it lacked a certain something. It needed to have videos in it that would make it better. Joseph decided to pass up the book; he didn't need anything else to preoccupy him from schoolwork. He scanned the book self with all of his might but could not find a book for a wizard's best friend. Joseph decided to turn in and go to bed it was already getting late. When he got to the common room, he could hear Louis and some other students speaking Spanish. "Goodnight Louis." Joseph said as he went by Louis. Louis looked at Joseph and smiled, "¿Por qué eres feo?" All the kids around Louis laughed and pointed a Joseph. Joseph was starting to get use to the fact that Louis could taught him in Spanish and there was nothing Joseph could do about it but walk away. Joseph walked up the stairs; the moon shone through the window onto the brick steps. The lake looked perfect on a night like this. Joseph stopped and looked out at the nighttime landscape. The moonlight was even shining on the lake. Joseph looked hard at the lake, something wasn't right about this scene. "Is the moon light moving." Joseph thought as he looked down on the lake. It seemed like something was glowing in the lake. The more Joseph stared at lake the more he realized what it was he was seeing. "Louis, BJ come here!" Joseph screamed at the top of his lungs. He stared out the window at the ghostly creature. Its body glared in the lake, it started moving forward deeper into the lake. "LOUIS, BJ COME HERE." The ghostly apparition was disappearing into the lake so fast that Joseph could barly see it now. "NO!" Joseph screamed and pounded his hand on the window. Louis came running up the stirs. BJ was coming down the stairs on the opposite side. "What is it Joseph?" BJ asked alarmed. "I saw it again, I saw the ghost." Louis looked at Joseph, with a puzzled look on his face. "It's ok Joseph." BJ said still looking alarmed. "Come on Louis lets take him to the hospital."  
  
Next, Chapter 6: The Celebration 


	6. The Celebration

Chapter 6 The Celebration  
  
Joseph stared at the brick walls surrounding him. There brownish tone made Joseph think that no one had been here in a long time. He looked down the narrow hallway to the light at the end. He started to walk down the hallway as if something was drawing him to the light at the end. The light became brighter and brighter as he made his way down. Sounds became present, faint smashing and booming noises were becoming easy to hear. The hallway was becoming smaller and smaller. Joseph started to crouch as he moved through the long hallway. Joseph got on his hands and knees crawling. The noises were becoming almost unbearable and hard to handle. The light started to blind Joseph and he had to cover his eyes. Suddenly the hallway disappeared so did the lights, and the sounds. Joseph stood up and looked around, he could barely make out what he was seeing. All he could see were two blurry figures, one appeared to be injured and the other was standing over him. "Leave Potter alone." Joseph heard one of the figures say. "Why do you always think it is about the boy Severus?" Another voice responded. The figures started to become less blurry. Joseph could make out the standing figure. He had never seen a man like this before. The man wore a dark blue hood over his face, so Joseph couldn't see who it was. The other man was face was cut up and bloody, Joseph thought the man looked familiar but couldn't make out whom it was. There was another body present but it didn't seem to be alive. A black dog lay on the ground next to the lifeless body. "What are you talking about?" said the bloody man on the ground. "Everyone thinks it's about Potter but they do not see the real plan." The hooded man pulled out a wand from his sleeve, "Now Severus it's time to talk about your betrayal, Crucio!" The wand blasted a small green jet and hit the man on the ground. The man on the ground's ground body gave a quick jolt and started to shutter and shake. "No!" Joseph yelled at the man, he tried to move forward but was stopped by some unseen force. "Now are you ready to talk Severus." The hood man coldly said. He had no mercy in his eyes and Joseph didn't think that the man on the ground could stop him. "Leave him alone, Voldemort!" Joseph turned to see.. Dumbledore! But a much younger (barely) looking Voldemort. "Dumbledore!" Voldemort hissed. "You are a cowered Voldemort always picking on those that can't defend themselves." Dumbledore had a look in his eyes Joseph never saw before; he seemed to be full of anger and rage.  
  
"Joseph, are you awake?" sounded a distance voice. Suddenly the world started to go brighter and brighter. Joseph opened his eyes to see Louis staring at him. "Wha." were the words Joseph was able to complete. "Are you ok, you we talking in your sleep." Louis said. "Where am I?" Joseph said as he leaned tried to get up, unsuccessfully of course. "Your at Madam Pomfrey's." Louis sounded worried. "Why.." Joseph managed to get out before he fell back on the bed. "You started freaking out big time, so we took you to Madam Pomfrey's and she gave you a mild sedative." " Mild sedative." Joseph said as loud as he could. "I feel awful." "I am sorry Joe, but you were acting wired last night." Louis looked around the room and then back on Joseph. "RAAAAAAAAA." The school bell rang at low pitch. "I hate to leave ya Joe, but I have to get to Muggle studies, or Carroll will be really angry." Louis got up and started to walk away. "Wait, a sec." Joseph signaled Louis with his hand. "How long have I been asleep?" "About 2 days." Joseph's mind started to flash with questions but was forced to suppress them because of Louis's departure. Joseph looked around at the hospital. There were six beds in the room, three on the opposite line he was in. A curtain on all sides covered two of the beds. On the right side of the room was Madam Pomfrey's office; he had seen Madam Pomfrey once at the Welcoming back feast or what ever they called it. Joseph lad his head back down on the pillow and rolled over.  
  
Joseph woke up to the old voice of Madam Pomfrey. "How are you feeling Joseph?" She said while she prodded a thermometer into Joseph's mouth. "Iaa feel better." Joseph said startled. Madam Pomfrey grabbed the thermometer out of his mouth and looked at it "Good, good you have cooled down considerable." Joseph stared at her half awake and half asleep. His head didn't hurt as much as before, but his throat was dry. "Can I have a glass of water?" Joseph asked. "Oh sure." A grin appeared on her face. She pulled out her wand and waved it around, "Grimattico." She said and then a glass of water appeared on the table next to Joseph. Joseph thankful grabbed the cup of water and started chugging the water down. With every chug can a great relief to his sore throat. "My aren't you thirsty." Madam Pomfrey said with a smile. After he finished drinking his water, Joseph looked around. The windows had become dark, so it must have been night. "What time is it?" Joseph looked up at Madam Pomfrey. "Well considering the time you have been sleeping and factor in the position of the moon." She did some counting on her hands and fingers. " I'd say it's about time you go back too your common room." Her smile bulged across her face. "Ua ok." Joseph said feeling uncomfubale. He stood up feeling wobbly and sick to the stomach, but he didn't want Madam Pofrey to think anything is wrong so he continued to smile though he felt like barfing. Joseph walked down the hallway to the Ravenclaw common room. He approached the panting of the old man with the cane. "Password please." The old man's raspy voice was only out done by his toothless grin. "Ua lets see, Hipoman." Joseph said of the top of his head. The panting flew open and Joseph made his way into the common room. There were very few people in there, either it was dinner or past bedtime. Joseph eyes searched the room for sight of BJ or Louis but didn't see either of them. He walked over to the couch and sat down. He looked up at the huge painting of Ravenclaw the person who the Josephs house was named after. There was no clock in the common room you had to use your self as a guide to what time it was. Joseph looked around the room and saw an older student sitting at the table in the corner studying. "Excuse me," Joseph said in a horse voice. The Student looked up and pointed to himself. "Me?" He said in a shocked voice. "Ya, I was wondering if you had the time?" Joseph asked. "Oh let me check." He said, the boy pulled out a wand and swung it around. "Clockesnokus." He yelled out, so loud that Joseph covered his ears. "The time at now at Hogwarts School is 6:21 p.m. Do you wish to know the time for anywhere else in the world?" Said a mysterious feminine voice that appeared out of nowhere. "No thank you." The boy said. Joseph sat there with his eyes fixated on the boy. "Isn't it dinner time?" Joseph suddenly said. "Oh well I guess so." Said the boy as he returned to work. "My name is Joseph Masa." Joseph said smiling at the boy. The boy looked up at Joseph, "Mine is Mariano." He said with a short of accent. "Why are you still in here during dinner?" Joseph kept staring at Mariano. "Well, I have to do some studying for the trials." Mariano said like he wasn't paying attention. Joseph mind started to race, "If he is in the trials maybe you could put in a good word for yourself." Joseph thought. "I am trying out for the trials." Joseph blurted out. "You are?" Mariano suddenly looked interested in Joseph. "Have you handed in your trial form yet?" Mariano asked with both eyes on Joseph. "Ya, I turned it in last week." Josephs smile grew. "Well that's good news," Mariano stood up and moved to the couch. "In two more days we are going to make our pick." Mariano sat down on the couch facing Josephs couch. "Do you think I have a good chance?" Joseph hinted. "Well, you see the team doesn't vote until the night we announce the winner. But we each team member receives a copy of each person who's trying out form and each person decide who they want then we hold the vote before hand." Mariano explained. "Oh I see." Joseph said as he rubbed his eyes, "Dang my head hurts." Mariano walked to the window not seeming to care what he said. "Well I better get back to work, I have to look through some papers before I decide who I pick." Joseph's eyes scanned the papers wondering if his was in the pile. "Well I better let you get to work, I'll head down to dinner." Joseph got up and started to walk to the door. "Oh Joseph there is no dinner tonight." Mariano turned back to Joseph. "What do you mean?" Joseph asked hoping that he would get a straight answer for once. "Well, tonight is the night each house announces the back up players for the Quidditch, and each house hold their announcement separately." Joseph thought for a second and then realized that BJ was trying out for a position. "Where are they holding Ravenclaws at?" Mariano, who was sitting on the couch again, thought and looked at Joseph. "I think they are using a spare basement room, one of the larger ones, I believe. Try the south basement." Mariano answered happily. "Thank you very much Mariano, and I guess I'll be seeing you around." Joseph was just about out the door when he heard Mariano's voice, "If I see you again Joseph, tell me who is picked." Joseph looked back "Ok see you around."  
  
Joseph took off down the hallways not wanting to be late for the announcements. His head was still killing him but there is nothing he could do about it, he just tried not to think about it. For the life of him Joseph couldn't remember where the south basement is. He turned and turned but couldn't find anything. Joseph finally stopped a Third year in the hallway and asked him. "Well if you go all the way to the bottom of the stairs then you turn to the right and then you will see three doors, go into the middle one." The boy looked at Joseph as if he was some special E.D. student. "Thanks." Joseph said as he speed up again through the hallway. "Down the stairs, turn right and middle room." Joseph kept repeating in his head and he ran down the stairs. He finally made in all the way down the stairs. He turned right and ran through nearly headless nick. "Watch where you're going you wiper snapper." Nick yelled at Joseph as he sped down the hallway. "My bad." Echoed in the hallway. Joseph started to slow down he could make out three doors. He could tell that the middle one obviously had people in it and he walked right into a huge celebration. The room was crowed with his fellow Ravenclaws, but he could see anyone he knew. Where was Louis he had to be in here somewhere. Joseph eyes strained as he looked for Louis. Then the spotted him way in the front talking to his friend Miguel. "Dang it!" Joseph thought, "there is no way I can get all the was up to the front." Joseph grabbed a seat towards the back of the room. The whole room was lit up in candlelight; the main stage was elevated several feet off the ground. There were three people on the stage and they were preparing for something. The tallest boy in the group came forward; he was tall, dark, and blue eyed. "The women must love him." Joseph said in a hush. "As most of you know my name is Robert Belz- Templemen, I am the Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. Tonight I welcome everyone to the announcement of the back up or second string players, most of which are First Years." A fat kid stood up quickly and yelled, "First YEARSSSS." People in the audience laughed. "Anyway with out further a due I would like to announce the second string players." Joseph looked on nervously, I wonder if BJ is going to make it, even though he was the only to sign up for beater, it didn't mean they had to accept him. "And the second string Chasers will be," Robert pulled out a small piece of paper and glanced over it. "Jack Gregory," applause burst through the room and a pudgy, brown haired boy stood up and walked on to the stage. "Rebecca Dickinson," the crowd kept up its enthusiastic spirit and gave full applause. "Steven Miller, a tall, blue eyed boy walked up and joined the others. "Now for the Beaters," this was the category BJ applied for. "Because of our lack of interest in the category of Beater the two applicants who applied at the begin of the year get the position by default, BJ Thomas, and Mathew Adams." BJ walked up to the front of the crowd, fallowed by a tall, black hair boy, who must have been Mathew. "Now to the back up keeper, Ryan Heresy." A whole row in the middle of the room stood up and started chanting, "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan." as a good looking, buff, black hair, blue eyed, boy walked up in front of the room. "And finally the back up position of Seeker, now because of the amount of people applying for Seeker the team had to low the amount of people to a few select people and then interview them personally. And the person who meets all the requirements is." The crowd had silenced, not a noise could be heard in the room. "Miguel Cabello." No one made a sound, Miguel stood up and walked up stairs to the stage and looked out on to everyone. Louis started to clap and then whole room seemed to give a mediocre cheer. "Must have been a highly applied position." Joseph thought to himself.  
  
"Default, the sweetest word in the world." BJ said. After the celebration the whole house came back to the common room and where some of the older kids had managed to sneak in some food and throw a party. "So, where is Louis?" BJ said. "I don't know, I saw him at the announcements but I haven't seen him scene." Joseph and BJ sat down on the stairway; it was the only area that you could actually sit down on. "I think he went with Miguel and some of his friends, man are those guys going to cause some commotion or what?" Joseph said to BJ, but BJ was busy staring at some girls over in the corner. "Hey BJ come over," Rebecca and her friends waved at BJ. "Sorry Joseph the ladies call," BJ stood up and started to walk over to Rebecca. "See you later BJ." Joseph said as he watched BJ walk away. Joseph looked out the window for a second before he pulled away, "What ever I have been seeing out there can't be seen if I don't look." Joseph thought to himself, he turned away and watched the party. Joseph began to rub his head; the headache still hadn't gone away. "I need some sleep." He said quietly. Joseph stood up and walked into the sleeping quarters and got into bed, he hadn't slept in his own bed for 3 days and was nice to feel it under him. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.  
  
"OH LEGENDARY ONE FREE US AGAIN!" A strange voice blared across a dusty plain. Joseph stared out at the endless plain and froze; it was cold, freezing cold. "WHAT?" Joseph yelled in response to the voice. Just then a huge shadow burst across the land and a huge triangle shaped jewel appeared. It was three separate triangles put together to form a bigger triangle. Then another symbol appeared, a cress- crossed star in a circle. Joseph recognized this sign; it was the Star of David in a circle or better known as the sign of Satan. All of a sudden the Triangle and the Satan sign merged together and began to light on fire. "MAY HELL RAIN AGAIN AND THE WORLD BURN FOREVER." A new voice appeared and this new voice sounded evil. The red sky began to turn black and then.. Joseph woke up drenched in sweat and heart palpitating at a monstrous rate. His eyes where wide open and he could hardly catch his breath. "What the heck was that?" he said out loud to himself. Joseph looked over at the bed next to him; BJ wasn't there. Joseph got up and looked at the clock on the opposite side of the room. 2:12 A.M. it read, "The party must still be going on." Joseph thought as he walked out of the room. And indeed the party was still going on, but most people had quitted down and where just talking or playing wizards chess. Joseph looked around the room and spotted BJ lying on the couch sleeping. Louis could be seen telling a joke to some guys on the other side of the room. Joseph walked back into the sleeping quarters and got in his bed. "What did the dream mean? Did it mean anything? Is it bad? Well anything that has to do with hell is bad." These thoughts kept running through his mind as he tried to get back to sleep. Joseph rolled over a few times before he realized it was no good, and got up he needed to take a walk.  
  
The hallways where empty tonight, like every night. Joseph assumed the other houses where having parties because there were no prefects around to supervise the hallways. Joseph wandered the hallways looking at all the different pictures. Most of the pictures were of old students who hung around in the school so long that they were given permeate places to live. Joseph walked down the stairs to the front room of the school; he glanced over all the trophies of the past. "Dang Gryffindor has won so many damn awards." Joseph said in amazement, as he looked at all the awards they had won over the years. Seven Quidditch trophies, five House Cup awards, and three special services awards. Then something caught Josephs eye, the awards for special services all had the same names on them. This award is given to Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Arnold Weasley for their service to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. All the awards read like this. Joseph wondered what they did to receive the awards. "I can understand Harry Potter getting the awards, he is after all Harry Potter but what about the other two people, Hermione Granger, and Arnold Weasley?" Joseph thought as he starred at the awards for quiet some time. "Well Emily I do like to stay up late and party back home." Joseph looked up to see Josh and Emily walking down the hall. Josh apparently hadn't seen Joseph yet cause he was still trying to impress Emily, which didn't look too hard to do. "Hi Josh," Joseph said as Josh was about to turn the corner. "Oh hi Joseph haven't seen you in a long time," Josh said with a grin on his face, "have you meet Emily yet?" he asked. "Ya I remember her from the train ride, you were one of the girl that where in our compartment, right?" Emily just smiled and nodded, with a fake kind of grin on her face. "Well Joe, Emily and I were just taking a walk, the party in Gryffindor is going crazy." Josh's grinned even wider. "We had a party in Ravenclaw too." Joseph said quickly to show he wasn't going to let Josh have the upper hand. "Well, I bet it isn't as wild as the party in Gryffindor." Josh said in response. Joseph knew this was just like Josh; he always had to be number one at everything, good or bad. "Well I better get back to Ravenclaw it's getting pretty late. See you around Josh, nice to see you again Emily." Joseph started to head back to Ravenclaw. "See you Joe, oh and Emily is a second year so she doesn't need to worry about class tomorrow." Josh yelled at Joseph. Joseph just continued to walk back up to Ravenclaw common room. Joseph began to wonder it Josh was ok or if he was as crazy as he thought he was, but that was another question he would have to ponder later on, he needed some sleep and maybe he would have good dreams for once.  
  
Next, Chapter 7: The Replacement 


	7. The Replacement

Chapter 7 The Replacement  
  
The day had finally arrived; the day that the Ravenclaw trial team would chose the First year they wanted to join the team. Ever scene BJ became the back up Beater for the Quidditch team Joseph thought he disserved the position on the trial team. Joseph was thinking about the trial team during Muggle Studies, he had a lot of spare time in Muggle Studies because he knew everything that Professor Carroll was going to teach them. "Hey Joe," Joseph looked back to see Louis whispering to him. "What?" Joseph said feeling annoyed that Louis interrupted his train of thought. "Are BJ and you going to the Trials announcements tonight during dinner?" Louis was leaning in to Joseph from his desk. "Yes we want to know who is going to be picked." Joseph started to turn around back to his seat, "Hey but Joe," Joseph turned back. "Do you want me to come?" Louis said. Joseph thought for a second, "Well isn't the whole House going to come?" Professor Carroll looked up and them, and Joseph quickly turned back to the front of the room. "A second year student said that they don't cancel dinner on Trial announcement night because the fact that the trials is such an unpopular thing." Louis said quickly hoping that Carroll wouldn't see him. "Well you can come if you want I don't really care." Respond Joseph, though on the inside he wanted Louis to come, but didn't want to force him to do anything he didn't want to do. "I'll probably not come then," Louis sounded relived. Joseph went back to thinking, this time he was thinking about the recent dreams he has had. "Both of them are very weird, but the one with Satan's sign scared me," he thought, "man I wish I knew what those dreams mean, it would let me relax for awhile." Professor Carroll stood up and walked in front of the class. "Now before I let the you guys out for lunch, I wanted to tell you that Christmas break is coming up and I am going to give you a huge project over it so I don't want you to think that Christmas break is going to be fun and happy." And with that speech she walked back to her desk and then the bell rang. Joseph got up and moved towards BJ and Louis. "Man my head is killing me," BJ said as they moved down stairs to lunch. "Well you shouldn't have slept on the couch last night." Joseph said. "How did you know I slept on the couch last night?" BJ asked in a freaked out tone. "I got up to take a walk last night and saw you sleeping on the couch." Joseph looked over at Louis to see he had vanished. "Must have gone with some of his friends." Said Joseph. BJ and Joseph sat down at a table and started to eat lunch. "Last night when I was walking I saw the awards that all the Houses have. Gryffindor and Slytherin each have twice as many as both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw combined. And I also saw the special service awards for the school, and Professor Krum has three of them. She, Harry Potter, and some guy named Arnold Weasley got them all. I wonder why they got them?" Joseph took a bite out of the sandwich he picked up. "Well perhaps you should ask Professor Krum," BJ said. "I don't think anyone has asked her anything about her past or about Harry Potter, you could be the first Joe." BJ gulped down some pumpkin juice. "What is up with pumpkin juice? I hate this stuff but it is all they serve." Joseph just shrugged not give much thought to BJ pumpkin juice question. "I'll think I will ask Professor Krum about the special services awards." Joseph blurted out. "I'll just wait till after our lesson then I'll ask her how she got them. You want to come with me BJ?" Joseph looked at BJ to see his mouth stuffed with food, but he did nod his head. "OK then after class we will ask her."  
  
Potions class was extremely boring but Joseph had new resolve to get through it. "Ready to go BJ?" Joseph said right before the bell rang. "Yup I just need to copy down the homework." BJ responded. Professor Krum was a good professor but she did seem to give a huge amount of homework. When the bell rang Joseph and BJ approached Professor Krum's desk. "Excuse me professor." Joseph said nervously. Professor Krum looked up at them and smiled, "What is it boys?" Joseph took a deep breath and began. "Well last night I noticed that out of all the special service awards in the school your name is on more then half of them." Joseph took another deep breath. "And we were wondering how you got them?" She looked at Joseph then at a nodding BJ. "Well boys I have to admit I was wondering if anyone was going to ask me about the awards or at least about the past. But I am more then happy to tell you," Professor Krum said with a smile on. "And before I tell you boys the story I have to say that I never did anything to earn those awards, it was my friends Harry and Ron that did all the work, all I did was worry about them." Joseph had a puzzled expression on his face. "Excuse me Professor, who is Ron, there was no Ron on those awards." He said. "Well Ron was what we called Arnold, we never used his first name." She responded. "Anyway the awards are for all the thing we did to help stop Voldimort and his cronies. I don't really have time to tell you Boys the stories but someday in class I will tell you some of them, but right now Headmaster Dumbledore wants to have a meeting with the entire staff, something about a new Professor coming to teach at the school." She smiled as she stood up and acoumpiened BJ and Joseph back to Ravenclaw common room. "What a jip," BJ said later that night. "We wanted to hear stories not excuses." Joseph and BJ were sitting in the meeting room waiting to hear the announcements for the First year that is going to be on the Trials team. The room had hardly anyone in it, Joseph wondered if any even cared if the team existed or not. There were only eight people who where in the room, and only four of them were First years. The stage in the front of the room had 6 members on it, meaning that one more was needed to complete the team. Joseph was hoping he would be the one that was chosen to the team. But he knew that he made up at least two of the answers on the paper test they gave them. He sat there looking glum; on the other hand BJ was smiling happily he must have gotten all the right answers on the test. "Lets get this show on the road," said a blonde girl in the front row, the whole room shared her sentiments. "Ok people welcome to the third annual Wizard and Witch trial announcements, my name is Percy Stevenson I am the 7th year team member for the Wizard/Witch Trial team. Before I announce the 1st year member, I would like to introduce the Ravenclaw team. The 6th year member, Hermione Terea. The 5th year member Jim Donaldson, the 4th year member Heather Micksen, the 3rd year member Oliver Mead, and finally the 2nd year member Mariano Luna." Joseph remembered Mariano from a couple nights ago and was hoping he took his advice and put a good word for him. "And now I would like to introduce you to the new member of the wizard trial team." Joseph's heart was pounding against his chest, this is what he has been waiting for would he make it or not. He glanced over at BJ who looked as cool as a cucumber. "BJ Thomas." Percy finished his sentence. Joseph's mouth just hung open as BJ stood up and strode up to the front of the room and joined the team. "BUT HOW?" Joseph asked himself. Joseph was speechless and felt like crap.  
  
Later that night after much of the House had gone to sleep, Joseph sat up looking out the window, BJ had to go to a special meeting for new Trial members. "I hope he gets injured during the games," Joseph thought bitterly. "That lousy jerk took Quidditch and he also took the trials." Joseph just looked and starred out at the moon. "I need to blow some steam." Joseph said out load and got up to take a walk around the school. The hallways were much like they always where during the nighttime. But that is when it happened; Joseph was heading around the corner when he spotted Snape coming down the hallway. "Oh crap if I am caught then I will get a detention." Joseph said to himself. Joseph looked around and saw the statue of a Knight and jumped behind it to wait until Snape passed. "Professor Snape," It was the Janitor Mr. Filch. "Yes what is it?" Snape said as he turned to Filch. "I heard a rumor or two from a couple students that there is going to be a change in the leadership of Hogwarts. And I have been dieing to know if it is true." Filch said as he looked nervously around. Snape also looked around to see if anyone was listening, luckily for Joseph they didn't notice the knight statue in the corner. "Well, Mr. Filch the rumor is true there is going to be a change in leadership," Snapes voice lowered down to a whisper. "After all that has happened in the last 10 year, Dumbledore feels that all is safe again in the world. And now he has decided that he take a brake, a long brake from being headmaster." Filch eyes widened as Snape said this. "Well who is going to lead the school?" Filch managed to spit out. "Dumbledore said he would name his successor as well as a public announcement that he is going to leave after winter brake." Snape flashed an evil smile as he said this. "But we all know who is going to replace him. It's going to be Minerva and most likely Hermione will take over Transfiguration. I have no idea who is going over Potions. But as long as I am still in charge of defense against the dark I don't care." Snape's smile intensified and it made him look eviler then Joseph had ever seen him before. "Well Professor it's a shame that we must lose Dumbledore, he is the best Headmaster we have ever had here at Hogwarts." Filch wiped an away a tear as he said this. Joseph was finding it harder to stay scrunched up behind the statue and decided to move his legs. He slowly moved out his right leg to make room for his other leg. "Slam!" Joseph left leg slipped out from underneath him hit the statue. The sound echoed through the halls. Snape turned almost immediately and pulled out his wand. "Oh crap I am screwed." Joseph thought as he heard Snape walking over to his position. Joseph looked up wards to see an evil grin on Snapes face change to a look of anger. "Well if it isn't Mr. Masa on a late night stroll, are we. Come with me boy." Joseph got up and went with Snape.  
  
Joseph was in Snapes office looking directly at Snape in the eyes. "Well Mr. Masa can you explain you late night expedition?" Snape said slowly so Joseph wouldn't make any mistake on what he was saying. Joseph just sat there in a chair not able to speak. "WELL ANSWER ME BOY." Snape yelled. "Ua well you see Professor.. I was.walking and I came along.." Joseph began to say. "So you out taking a stroll after the curfew hours of a First year, well sounds like a good excuse to me Mr. Masa," Snape said sarcastically. "This isn't the bloody United States of America, we don't break the rules and expect everyone to forgive us, nope, here we do things a little differently." Snape walked over to his book self and pulled out a particularly thick book and opened it. "Lets see here.." he flipped through a few pages before he settled on the one he wanted. "Ah here we are detention punishments, oh it seems you are in luck Mr. Masa I am booked solid through the Christmas break, I'll just pencil you in the week after we come back. And until then Mr. Masa I suggest you don't take any more late night walks." Snape slammed the book shut and put it back in the book self. "Now go back to your common room." Joseph started to head out the door. "Oh one more thing Mr. Masa, 20 points from Ravenclaw." Snape said, the smile returned back to his face. Joseph hurried up and left Snape office before he took off more points from Ravenclaw. Joseph hurried down the hallway to Ravenclaw Common room. At this point in his life he never hated someone as much as he hated Snape. As Joseph ran threw the hallway he glanced at the beautiful moon that seemed to haunt him. Joseph then stopped, and glared at the house that he saw the ghost like apparition in. "It's time I get proof," he said out loud. "I need to get a camera and take a picture of the creature so people will believe me." Joseph though for a second and then finished his journey to the Ravenclaw common room. He just knew exactly what he was going to he was going to barrow Chris Mulky's instant photograph camera. Chris was a tall blond haired, blue-eyed boy, who had quite a love for photography and brought a camera with him to the school. Joseph quietly snuck his way up into the sleeping quarters, everyone had gone to sleep already, even BJ was there, and Joseph figured the meeting with the trial team was over. Joseph walked slowly over to Chris's stuff, Chris was asleep on the top bunk, snoring loudly as usual. Joseph opened Chris trunk, Joseph thought that it might be locked but Chris hardly ever remembered anything. Joseph searched through Chris's stuff, most of the stuff was sleeping clothes and music CDs. "Ah ha," Joseph quietly said as he grasped Chris's automatic flash, top of the line camera, probably very expensive. Joseph had to remind himself that it wasn't a toy and not meant to be messed around with it. Joseph made his exit from the common room. The hallways were being patrolled at nights and he didn't want to lose any more points for Ravenclaw. He had to make it out to the cabins before any one sees him. Joseph walked slighlently and quickly down the hallway, taking the fastest way he knew down to the lake. As he made the final turn to outside he could feel the cool air on his face. It definitely was almost Christmas time; the air was very cold. Joseph walked out towards the cabin, no longer in a hurry, Joseph started to crouch to the ground, as he approached the cabin he got the camera ready. He was right under the window, getting ready to look in. Joseph felt the butterflies in his stomach. He slowly lifted himself up and looked into the window, there it was the creature glowing like never before. It was in some sort of trance. Its eyes were closed and it was floating in mid-air, it looked like a yoga master in one of his positions. Joseph quickly moved the camera upwards and snapped a shot or the creature. Joseph ducked down again, hoping the creature didn't see him. Joseph counted to ten and then set off across the field at the top speed he could run. He quickly jumped up stairs and sped back to the common room. As he jumped through the hole to Ravenclaw common room, the reality of the situation hit him. He just got proof that the creature no one else could see, existed. "Yes!" he let out a yell. Then realized everyone is asleep and he didn't want to wake anyone up. Joseph climbed up the stairs to the sleeping quarters; Joseph sat down on his bed and slide the side of the camera and pulled out the picture. The waved it around for a few seconds before the picture started to appear on it. Joseph could make out the chair on the side of the cabin room. Now he could see the window on the other side of the cabin, "Wait a minute," Joseph thought. "The creature wasn't in the middle of the room it isn't anywhere." Joseph looked at the picture horrified, "Where is it?" he couldn't find it in the picture. It was nowhere to be found the picture. Joseph just sat there with his jaw dropped, starring at the picture hope that it was some kind of wizard magic that would change in a few seconds. But it wasn't and Joseph finally gave up and threw the picture on the floor, lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. "I can't be crazy, can I?" Joseph thought. But soon his thoughts were cancelled out by the need for sleep and he feel asleep.  
  
The next morning was Saturday, and it was a cold and gray one. Joseph woke up really late; no one else was in the room sleeping he was the last one up. Joseph got up and started his morning routine. Took a shower and got dressed. He was on his way to breakfast when he looked out the window to see Josh and Jessica walking near the lake. Joseph stopped to watch them walk, secretly hoping that the squid in the lake out come out and eat them both. But when they passed out of view Joseph continued his journey to the breakfast table. He walked into the room to see that there wasn't any one in there. Joseph looked around and scratched his head. "Damn I am having one of those days all week long," he said out loud. Joseph walked over to the Ravenclaw table and sat down. There was no food on the table so Joseph just sat there wondering where everyone was. "I hope this isn't a horrible dream," thought Joseph. "Maybe I should look around the school." Joseph got up and left the room and went to several popular places. He tried the library but it was closed, he went back to the common room hoping someone would be in there but nobody was. Joseph then thought, "I'll find Josh and ask him." He rushed out to the lake but wasn't able to find him. Then as Joseph was about to give up and go back to the common room, he saw the stadium. "The Quidditch match!" He shouted out loud, and ran his fastest to the stadium. Joseph wondered why no one had bothered to wake him for it. Today's match was the beginning of the Quidditch season, and it was supposta be a good one. It was Ravenclaw V.S. Slytherin. Joseph hurried up and walked into the stadium and looked for his friends. "LOOK OUT!" Joseph looked upwards to see a little golden ball and then right behind it was two people riding on broomsticks. Joseph jumped on the ground and covered his head. The two broomstick riders zoomed over his head. "What an amazing display of sportsmanship," Joseph heard a loud voice booming. "With the golden snitch almost caught the score is Ravenclaw 70, Slytherin 50, it sure is a high scoring game today." Joseph let a smile on his face, "At least Ravenclaw was winning," he thought. Joseph walked up into the Ravenclaw section of the stadium and began to look for BJ and Louis. But he was beginning to realize that Ravenclaw had more people in it then Joseph had ever thought. He weighted his way through the crowd looking for any sign of BJ or Louis. But that is when he saw Louis, sitting next to Miguel, in the second to front row. Joseph shoved his way up to Louis. "Hey Louis how come you didn't wake me up?" Joseph asked while breathing a little harder then usual. "Well Joe I was going to but then something amazing happened," Louis responded. Joseph rolled his eyes, when Louis said something amazing happened that meant they served to servings at breakfast. "You see Tim York, the Beater for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team woke up this morning and fell all the way to the bottom of the stairs. A shame really, but guess who gets to replace him?" Joseph mouth dropped wide open, "BJ!" Joseph yelled. Joseph looked upward with out even waiting to see Louis response. His eyes scanned the sky. "There he is!" Joseph excitedly pointed upward at the sky, he could make out that BJ was hiding towards the back of the stadium. "Perhaps BJ is a tad scared of his position." Joseph said as he watched BJ fly away from the Bludger as it came near him. Joseph grabbed a free seat next to Louis. "But why would they pick BJ to fill in the position of Beater if he is on the Trial team and they had another guy to fill in?" Asked Miguel. Both Louis and Joseph were fixated on BJ and couldn't take their eyes off him. "Well the other guy Mat Adams wussed out and said he didn't want to be a beater, so they asked BJ, and he accepted." Louis said without taking his eyes off BJ. Joseph took his eyes of BJ and looked at Louis, "Wait a minute doesn't that mean he can't be on the Trial team?" Joseph said as he glared at Louis. Louis took his eyes of BJ and thought for a second, "Guess so, it's the rules after all. I wonder who will replace him?" Louis said. But Joseph had already left and was off looking for Mariano. "Maybe I'll be the runner up guy, they will choose." Joseph thought as he made his way through the crowd. "Oh and the last minute replacement Thomas makes a smashing attempt at stopping the Bludger." Joseph looked upwards to see BJ smashing the beater at the opposite member of Slytherin team. A smile broke across Josephs face. Joseph then continued his search for Mariano. He looked through row after row and finally spotted him in the back row with a bunch of papers in his hands. "Mariano," Joseph yelled out. Mariano turned and looked at him. Joseph ran forward to Mariano. "Mariano who is going to replace BJ on the Trial team?" Joseph said to a dumbstruck Mariano. "Well a let me check. He said. Mariano searched threw a bunch of papers before settling on the correct one. "Here we go," he said "someone named Joseph Masa, he received the second most votes." Joseph looked at him square in the eyes. "YES!!!" Joseph screamed. "That's me I am Joseph Masa." Mariano looked at him for a second or two. "Oh pleased to meet you," Mariano said as he extended his hand. Joseph took his hand and gave it a good shake before he returned to his seat next to Louis. "Louis, I am the replacement for the Trial team." Joseph announced. "Good for you Joe, now leave me alone the seekers are going crazy and chasing something." Joseph looked up and saw the Ravenclaw seeker speeding through the stadium. "The Seekers are going crazy are they chasing something or is it a fake out?" Announced the announcer. "Wait a minute folks someone has got the snitch. It looks like.David King has it, RAVENCLAW WINS!" The Ravenclaw side of the stadium burst into wild mayhem. "This is the first year in five years that Ravenclaw has beaten Slytherin." The announcer said but couldn't be heard because of the noise. "KING KING KING." The crowd started to chant.  
  
In just one hour another party had started in the Ravenclaw common room, this time though the party was so wild it had spilled out into the hallway. "That was the coolest thing I have ever done," said BJ during the party. "When Mat chickened out I just stepped up and said 'I'll do it' I mean I didn't even think about it." BJ took a giant swig out of the carbonated pumpkin juice bottle. "You looked scared at the beginning but then you smashed that Bludger so hard you could hear it in the U.S." Joseph said while taking his turn at the pumpkin juice. "Man I hate this stuff." Joseph spit out the juice that was in mouth. "Hey don't do that." BJ said with a smile on his face. He grabbed the bottle from Joseph and put his thumb over the top and shook the bottle up. "Now this is how you do it, Joe" BJ said as he sprayed the juice all around the room. Just then the Captain of the Quidditch team, Robert, stood up on the couch and cleared his throat. "QUIET IT PLEASE." He yelled out. The room hushed up and focused their attention on him. "First over all lets give a hand for the entire team for training so hard for this match." The audience let loose and started cheering and screaming. "Now a special hand for BJ Thomas for filling in at the last minute when Tim York took that horrible fall." The audience continued their wild cheering. "Hopefully Tim will be able to compete after the Christmas Brake, but BJ we still want you to practice with us, you have the potential to become a great Beater. Now give a hand for the man who is responsible for getting us the victory today, DAVID." The room exploded in a cacophony of cheering. "We beat Slytherin and after the brake, we show Gryffindor how to really play Quidditch." Robert screamed over the noise. Ravenclaw continued to party into the night, and for the first time in a long while Joseph was able to forget his problems.  
  
Next, Chapter 8: The Trials Begin 


	8. The Trials Begin

Chapter 8  
  
The Trials Begin  
  
The next two weeks were filled with tests and quizzes the likes of which Joseph wasn't prepared for. Joseph was a smart student but when it came to magic he just didn't seem to be able to get the big things. BJ on the other hand was able to get good marks with out even studying. He just seemed to have the ability to do what ever he wanted to do and also do it well. In other words he could have his cake and eat it too. Louis also seemed to be good at what ever he did, well there was an exception he could do wizard stuff good, but when it came to Muggle stuff he was obviously horrible at it. During the Muggle studies final Louis couldn't add, subtract, figure out how to operate a T.V. remote, and he also had trouble with the Muggle history section of the test. During the test he kept asking BJ and Joseph when the French Revolution took place and what happened at the storming of the Bestige. Joseph always told him the right answers but BJ liked to say it was wrong and Louis would always believe BJ over Joseph. And course Louis failed the test, he blamed BJ but BJ told him the same thing he told everyone who wondered why he told them the wrong answers, "You chose to listen to me." Joseph secretly hoped that BJ would get a taste of his own medicine but whom was he kidding, everyone knew BJ was too good to let something like that happen to him. Also during the weeks leading up to vacation Joseph has been attending meeting about the trials. He found out a lot of new information he didn't know. He received the Official rulebook to Wizards Trials. The rules are stated out in this order: Each team must have seven members. Four or less teams may face off in a Race A Race is when a course is picked out, and each team starts at a designated spot and moves through the course by completing obstacles, with every obstacle you complete you may move on to the next. Once every obstacle has been completed the race is over and the team that crosses the designated finish line wins. Each course must have at least 6 obstacles in a course. The team that completes all the obstacles and crosses the finish line first receives 100 points to their house. The second place team receives 75 points to their house, the third place team receives 50 points, and the fourth place team receives 25 points. At the end of the year a tournament is held in three round. The first round all four teams participate, at the end of the end of the round the team with the lowest amount of points is eliminated and my not participate in the next round. In the next round there are three teams, and the team with the least amount of points is eliminated and my not participate in the final round. In the final round there is only two teams, the team with the most points at the end of the round is declared the winner. The tournament takes place over the second to last weekend in May. The Teams that participate in the tournaments revive points each round depending on what place their team finishes in. First place in all rounds receives 3 points, second place receives 2, third place receives 1 point and forth place receives 0 points. The point system is always in effect except in the first round where the forth place team is eliminated. Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout in force all rules. Studying the rules was Joseph job over the break was to memorize the rulebook so he could not make any mistakes. The first match is on the week after they come back, so Joseph wanted to be prepared for anything.  
  
So finally Christmas break came and everyone was excited. Especially Joseph, his Mom is coming to London. Joseph and his mom are going to tour England with Josh and his parents. "It is going to be fun," said Joseph as him and BJ sat in a compartment on the Hogwarts express, speeding back to London. "So what are you going to do BJ?" asked Joseph. "Well my dad and I are going to golf a whole bunch, it doesn't snow where I live so I am able to play golf all year long, and I also and going to try to find some other wizards who play Quidditch so I can practice with them." BJ said as he glanced out at the moving landscape. " It's funny isn't it? How when we first came to Hogwarts the land was green and mountainous, now it is just white all around." Joseph looked out the window to see what BJ was talking about. "Wow!" Joseph said. The landscape was covered in snow and incredibly white. Joseph didn't know what to say besides, "Wow!" The magic world was really amazing when it came down to it. "I've seen better." Said a strangely familiar voice. Both BJ and Joseph turned around to see who was speaking. It was Josh. Joseph just sat there shocked to see Josh coming to him. "Where.why.when" Joseph managed to get out. BJ just turned back to the window. To him Josh wasn't that big of a deal, just another macho guy. "Well I just wanted to see my old friend Joseph again," Josh said. Josh took a seat next to Joseph. "What's the real reason you came Josh?" BJ said sarcastically. A fake smile came over Josh. "No I really came to spend time with Joseph," Joshes unconvincing tone was getting worse. "Sure you are, which one of your women ditched you? Was it the blond one, what's her name.oh well they are all the same, easy on the eyes but no neural stimulation. Or was it the brunette who seems nice but every time she looks back you when you walk away from her she is checking the size of your wallet." BJ said. He got up and walked to the door. "Hey Oliver I am going to find the Quidditch team and see how it is going." He walked out with out even looking back. "Whatever." Josh said. "How is it going Joseph?" "I guess ok, but I don't know why BJ just said what he did." Joseph responded. "How are things with you?" "Good." Josh leaned back into the seat. "BJ is just mad at me cause I get all the women, it happens to all the guys who hang around me." Josh had a smug smile on his face. Joseph just smiled and bit his lip. The truth was Josh only had two or three women that he hung around, BJ had tons of women who wanted to be more then friends but he just kept things normal because he isn't ready to have that type of relationship. "So how are Jessica and Emily doing?" Joseph asked out of courtesy. "They are doing good, Jessica is getting perfect marks in her classes. Emily is practicing up for the trials. She is the second year on the Gryffindor Trial team. So do you know any women?" Josh said. Typical Josh always wanting a competition, but one he could win. Joseph knew girls around the school, but he wasn't good at making friends with girls, like Josh and BJ. "Well I have been studying lately and haven't had much time to be socializing with anyone girl or boy." Joseph hoped Josh didn't see through his lie. "I have work to do Oliver but I never do it and I still pass." Josh, saw right through it. "So where is your parents going to pick us up when we get to the platform?" Joseph asked. "Somewhere in the front, but Joseph you are avoiding the issue at hand, why don't you have any friends that are girls?" Josh wasn't going to let Joseph off without a good excuse, but Josh never would get the answer he wanted. Josh wanted to hear Joseph say, "You are better then me Josh at everything I am always number two to you." Joseph would never say that unless he was under some curse. "I don't know why Josh," Joseph said with a sigh. "I guess I just don't care." "Man Joseph, you need to stop trying to be so smart and let everything slip. Once you stop trying to be yourself, you will realize that you are so much cooler then you are now." Josh said without hesitation. Joseph sat there in disbelief of what he just heard. "Stop being yourself," is what Joseph heard. That's a pretty hard to except from someone you considered to be a good friend. "Well I'll think about Josh." Joseph managed to get out. "I mean Joseph you are sort of sad," Josh continued. "Always hanging out with BJ and the other guy." "Louis." Joseph interrupted "Yea, whatever. The point is that you need to find more.cooler people to hang out with." Josh shifted in his seat. Joseph sat in his seat not knowing what to respond with. "Joseph are you ok?" Josh aid breaking the silence that the room was filled with. "Maybe you just haven't reached the level that I have Joseph, one day you will be as advanced as me." A smug smile spread itself across Joshes face. KNOCK-KNOCK. Someone was knocking on the door, just in time in Joseph's opinion. "Come in." Josh said. The door opened and a witch pushing a cart full of all sorts of goodies and snacks on it. "Want anything to eat boys?" The witch said through her toothless grin. "I'll have the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans." Josh said, pointing to a small bag of what looked like candy beans, but were colored all sorts of mysterious colors. The lady handed Josh a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "You see Joseph the amazing thing about the beans is that there is almost every flavor of something in these bean. They are almost like a roller coaster, spectacular highs and disgusting lows." Josh picked out a single white bean that had yellow polka dots on it. "A danger to mortal men, but I shall take the risk." Josh popped the bean into his mouth. His face lit up with delight, "Wow I think that was one of those rare Rainbow flavored beans, tastes like a party on my mouth and everyone is invited. You want one Joe?" Josh extended the bag to Joseph. Joseph reached his hand over into the bag and drew out a flame color bean. "Bottoms up," Joseph said as he swallowed the bean. Instantly is face contorted into discomfort and his eyes started to water. "Water.water." Joseph said in a raspy voice. Josh just started to laugh, "It will wear off Joe, and I guess you aren't up to the task of temping fate like me." Joseph just continued to grab his throat and massage it. Joseph lied back against the seat and looked out the window. Joseph watched the snow covered landscape pass by and his eyes began to get heavy. Joseph closed his eyes and let reality drift away.  
  
Soon the train made it to platform 9 ¾. Joseph and Josh left the train to meet their parents. The greeting was met with much love and happiness. Stories of the first half of school were told over lunch in Brussels, thanks to foo powder. The next couple of weeks pasted in no time at all. England was very beautiful and had a lot of things to do in it. But Joseph favorite part of vacation was the homecoming to the U.S.A. For some reason Joseph felt like crying when he arrived home. Joseph really didn't count himself patriotic at all but when he saw the American flag waving outside his neighbor's house he never felt prouder. The rest of Joseph vacation was spent with his mom. They talked about the school and how weird his Professors are. Also Joseph inquired about his dad but as usual his Mom just smiled and said, "I'll tell you another day." An answer that Joseph hardly wanted to hear but accepted it. Joseph received many letters from BJ and Louis. BJ was relaxing his life away and enjoying the moment. Louis on the other hand was still at Hogwarts. He has nine siblings so he decided not to come home for Christmas. Joseph thought Louis's parents didn't want him to come home for the break, but accepted Louis's answer. Joseph also received letters from the Trial team saying what he needed to study up on for the first practice race. All the races were practice for the tournament at the end of the year. Most of the stuff they wanted Joseph to study was about spells that could stun small creatures. Joseph didn't understand why they wanted him to learn stun spells but he would try to. Of course he couldn't practice the spells at home the Congress of Magic would fine him money if he practice magic out of school. So Joseph just studied the trivia questions they wanted him to know. For Christmas Joseph and his mom traveled to visit his relatives. None of his relatives lived in the same state as Joseph so him and his mom never told them about his Wizard ability. Mrs. Masa just came up with excuses every time someone called for Joseph. The excuses were wearing thin but now that Joseph was back he could visit them and put a stop to the wondering. Christmas past quickly too and before Joseph knew it he had to go back to Hogwarts. The farewell at platform 9 ¾ was an emotional one. Both Mrs. Masa and Mrs. Thompson cried. Mr. Thompson just told them to stay out of trouble. So the journey to Hogwarts began again. Josh quickly ditched Joseph and found some women friends to talk too. Joseph searched around for BJ but didn't find him. Joseph went to the normal compartment, sat down, and closed his eyes to go into a sleep. "The ones who hold the key will never know they do." A thundering voice said. Joseph looked around; he wasn't in the train any more. The landscape was much different, just blackness all around, he was floating in this strange place. "What?" screamed Joseph into the darkness. "Does thy soul know what it shall hold?" The Thundering voice answered back. "I." Joseph didn't know what he should say or what the voice meant. "Chaos hold the doom, the sword holds the truth and the sages hold the keys." The darkness around Joseph started to fade away and it was replaced with green grass, huge trees, and many people. "Do thy children bear thy bourdon? Will the sky fall to your hatred or will the world be one again?" Joseph looked around at the vast forest he was surround in. The trees were huge and colorful. The people ran wild, playing, talking, and having fun. Then the mood changed, the sky changed from blue to red. The people of the land looked upwards and stopped doing what they were doing. Then Joseph saw something terrible. Fireballs, green fireballs fell out of the sky and smashed into the land. Trees were destroyed, the land was torn up, and these fireballs were crushing people. The land turned into a living hell. "Does thy see the past? Witness the future of your world if thy doesn't find the key of thy soul." The world started to fade from view again and back into darkness. Joseph floated in the darkness seeing the images of the destruction playing through his mind. "WAKE UP!!" Joseph woke up from his sleep to see Josh standing over him. "Dang Joe, I was trying to wake you up for at least five minutes." "Huh, ok." Joseph said dazed. "Are we at the school?" "Yea, I came in here to change into my robe, I didn't think anyone one was in here. When I saw you, you were sweating and talking in your sleep." "Oh, maybe I should get dressed." "Joe, what were you dreaming about?" Joseph could see the dream so clearly, but didn't want to tell Josh. "It was about how Professor Carroll was yelling at me once in class." Joseph lied. "Well we should get changed so we don't get in trouble." Josh pulled his robe out of his bag. Joseph quickly followed suit. They both changed into their robes and exited the train. Hogwarts looked the same as it had before they left. They had a huge feast to welcome back the students to Hogwarts. BJ, Joseph, and Louis all told stories about their vacations. The food was good and the mood in the room was of happiness. But Joseph couldn't enjoy himself. The dream was so real and so scary he felt like he had more then a dream maybe something signaling the end.  
  
Despite the re-welcoming party, everything was still the same. Professor Carroll was as mean as he was before and Professor Krum assigned as much homework as before. Joseph felt worn out by the end of the day but he still had to practice up for the trials. He found out that the spells they wanted him to learn were harder to learn then he could have imagined. Still he was looking forward to the first practice race of the season (The only non-practice race was the tournament at the end of the year.) The night before the race a special meeting was held in the Ravenclaw common room. The 7th year member of the team, Percy Stevenson, was concerned that Joseph wouldn't be ready for the race, and that they would lose points. It seems that Percy's worry was justified because the years since the Trials were held Gryffindor won the Tournament all times. All Joseph could do was reassure Percy that he was a capable of at least casting the spells he had been working on once. It didn't reassure Percy but it would have to do. That night Joseph had trouble sleeping; he tossed and turned several times. "What if I mess up and screw up everything for the team?" Joseph thought, "They will be pissed at me." Joseph rolled around for an hour before he finally settled down and fell asleep. Joseph awoke early the next morning, exhausted from sleep depravation. But still feeling excited. The whole Trial team had breakfast in one of the basements. Percy thought that if they eat together as at team they would do better over all. Joseph could hardly eat his breakfast because of the excitement, but he shoveled it down because he knew he would be hungry later on. "The strategy is simple we need to get ahead early and stay ahead," Percy said with his mouth full of food. "Remember should be an easy match, it is only on the school grounds so we should be familiar with our surroundings." "Wait a minute aren't all the Races going to be held on Hogwarts?" Joseph said inquisitively. "Nope only one Race, the others are held in different exotic locations around the world. Usually the Professors hold a meeting and decide where we should go and tell us a week before the Race. The tournament location is kept secret 'till the day of the tournament." Answered Heather. She moved her hand through her black hair. "Sounds bazaar." Joseph replied and he gulped down the last scope of his cereal. "Ok is everyone ready to go?" Percy said. "Check your wands," the group pulled out their wands and inspected them carefully. Joseph's wand shined in the glow of the room. "Perfect," he muttered to himself.  
  
The Ravenclaw team strode across the field to the designated starting point. The sky was bright orange, a new morning had come and what it shall bring nobody knew. The other teams where lined up next to the stadium. Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout were standing in front of two yellow, eight feet poles that stuck up out of the ground. The poles were exactly 20 feet across from each other. "A magical barrier," Mariano whispered to Joseph. "Once the Race starts you have to cross through the poles to start and when you are finishing." "How do they make sure you complete all the obstacles?" Joseph asked. "At every obstacle is a little gem that is given to you after you have solved the puzzle," Mariano wiped the sweet from his forehead. "In fact the gem's are color coded, the teams have different color gems, green for Slytherin, red for Gryffindor, yellow for Hufflepuff, and blue for us Ravenclaw." "Why do they different colors for each team?" "I guess they just don't want teams stealing form each other." "Ok all teams are here, it's time to officially begin the Race," exclaimed Professor Flitwick. "Team 7th years line up your team in a straight line, in descending order starting with 7th years and down to first years." The mass of people standing at the starting line moved around lost in the chaos that Professor Flitwick brought with his announcement. "Joe, over here," it was Jim the 5th year member of the team. He was signaling to Joseph to get into his position in the line. Joseph rushed into his position quickly not wanting to angry Jim. Joseph looked around at the other lines. He could see some other first years he noticed from around the school. Emily was standing across from Mariano in the Gryffindor line. She had her blond hair in a bun. She was really quite pretty; Joseph couldn't take his eyes off of her. "Ready to go Joe," Joseph came back to reality to see Mariano staring at him. "Yea as much as I am ever going to be," Joseph looked straight ahead at Mariano. Joseph needed to concentrate if he was going to get through this without screwing up his team. "Teams ready?" Professor Sprout asked The 7th years on each team nodded their head in answer to the question. "Ok then.Ready," Joseph bent forward. "Set." Joseph griped the wand in his hand. "GOOOOOOOOO," Professor Sprout shot off a flare from her wand to signal the beginning for the race. The Ravenclaw team moved in perfect unison across the field. Hufflepuff seemed to have trouble and quickly lost pace with the other teams. Joseph wondered where they were heading, but his question was quickly answered as he saw a signpost standing out of the ground pointing right. The team moved in the direction of the sign. Joseph could see up ahead, four post box shaped objects sticking up from the ground. The teams approached the box that was colored their color. Josephs' team approached the blue colored box. On top of the box was a card that said, "3rd, 4th, and 5th years may open the box." Oliver, Heather, and Jim walked forward and assumed their role. Joseph looked over at the other teams. Gryffindor was the only other team that had made it to their box. Jim opened the box and pulled out a blue card and a pen and ink, the card had writing on it. "What does the sky hold that the ocean will never?" Jim read out loud. The three put their heads together and discussed the question before Jim wrote an answer on the page. Jim handed Heather the card and she slipped it back into the box. The box started to have convulsions. It shook and shacked for at least ten seconds before it stopped. Oliver reached back into it and pulled out a small, shiny, blue stone. Also he pulled out another card, "Next obstacle resides in the green house." Oliver read this card to the group. "What was the answer?" Mariano asked as the team started to move off again.  
  
" The stars, of course." Jim answered. "Hurry up Joe Gryffindor is right behind us." Percy voice yelled from the front of the line. The team entered the Greenhouse, the plants and tress growing in the greenhouse seemed to get bigger during the vacation, perhaps it did, but most of the stuff in the greenhouse is replanted all through out the year. The second task was like the first but this time it was 7th and 6th year members. The Gryffindor team was a few seconds behind them on answering the question but they were catching up and it was important that Ravenclaw didn't give up the lead. As the Ravenclaw team made there way through the next three obstacles Joseph hadn't done any of the obstacles and was feeling quite useless. But on another note he had been getting good exercise. A heavy sweat had broken over Joseph during the course of the race; showing just how out of shape he really was. Gryffindor fell behind during the 3rd obstacle and Ravenclaw had a large lead as they approached the last obstacle. A huge sign spread across the sky let Joseph know that he would finally be used. The sign held huge red letters that said, "2nd and 1st years may enter." Joseph look under the sign to see a door. It's just a door standing up nothing but the same scenery of the landscape behind it. "Well Mariano, maybe you should go first," Joseph said trying to hide the nervousness in his voice. "Oh thanks Joe I'll just walk through the magical door that leads to who knows where, why don't you go in there first after all you're a first year." Mariano said in the same nervous tone Joseph had. "But the sign says 2nd year on it first so go ahead." "Will you two hurry up Gryffindor isn't that far behind," Percy shouted at them. Mariano looked at Joseph and nodded his head. Mariano walked up to the door breathed in slowly and then opened the door handle. Mariano quickly walked in, fallowed closely by Joseph. The door must have been a magical portal because they were in a small room. The walls were covered in blue bricks, there was a small table in the middle of the room, and on the other side of the room was another door that Joseph figured was the exit to the room. Mariano and Joseph walked to the table. On the table was a card and two feathers. Mariano picked up the card and read what was on the card out load, "Both feathers must reach the roof of the building to unlock the other door, then you must race to the finish line for your place in line." Joseph scratched his chin, "Well lets get this show on the road." Mariano and Joseph pulled out their wands and took aim at there respective feathers. "Wingardium Leviosa," They both shouted at the top of their lungs. Mariano's feather graceful lifted to the roof. One of the two locks on the door disappeared when the feather hit the roof. Joseph's feather on the other hand barley lifted up at all. "Wave your wand more." Mariano instructed Joseph "Wingardium Leviosa," Joseph said again but this time waving his arms a little faster. "No, no its Windardium Leviosa," Mariano accented on the Leviosa. "Wingardium Leviosa," Joseph said this time accenting the Leviosa. "Keep at it Joseph you just need one good blast." "Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa." Joseph franticly said as time pasted ever faster. "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!!" Joseph wand shot out a blast of magic so fast it knocked Joseph on his back. The feather shot up faster then he had fallen back. The second lock on the door disappeared. Joseph got up and joined a running Mariano to the door. They opened the door to see it lead them exactly same spot they entered "Finally you two finish, lets go we are losing now," Percy said as he sped of towards the finish line. Joseph and Mariano fallowed the team and ran as fast as they could in robes. Joseph looked ahead to see the finish line but also the back for the Gryffindor team as they crossed it. Ravenclaw finished within seconds of the Gryffindor team. "Bloody Hell," exclaimed Percy as the Gryffindor team celebrated the win. "What the heck were you two doing in there?" Percy zoned all his angry on Mariano and Joseph. "It was me," Joseph raised his hand "What happened Joe, we were so far ahead and you blew it." Percy had a scowl on his face. "I am sorry," Joseph said with his head down. "Sorry! Sorry isn't going to get us the points back we lost. Just.damn it." Percy shook his head and walked away. "It's ok Joseph you did the best you could, it was the Gryffindor team is just good, the second year member Emily Mcguffry is damn good. So don't feel to bad." Mariano said trying to make Joseph feel better. But it did work, Joseph just stood there feeling like an idiot. "How could I be so stupid?" Joseph thought as he walked away from the field. Joseph looked over at the Gryffindor team; they were celebrating their victory by hugging each other and congratulating Emily and another girl Joseph had seen once in his life. Joseph turned away; know it was his fault that his team wasn't celebrating. Joseph just continued his long walk back to the common room.  
  
Next, Chapter 9: Lady Of The Lake 


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